Powerless
by Diztracshon
Summary: Ice Queen spends a day with Fionna, pretending to be Gumball, and finds that the girl is much more interesting than any prince. After Fionna takes her crown away Ice Queen starts to get sick and turns to the only person she can think of, Fionna, to help. Are there more consequences to losing her powers than she'd thought? Lesbian content. Will be edited further.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I don't own any of the characters, copyright to Cartoon Network and Pendleton Ward

Fair warning, this first chapter is essentially a rewrite of the episode entitled 'Adventure Time With Fionna and Cake' from the perspective of Ice Queen. I wasn't going to do it, but when I tried to just go from after the episode finished I couldn't get the characters, I don't know if I did, but I live in hope. I hope that even if the rewrite doesn't grab you, you can persevere, I think it gets better.

* * *

She was always angry, it seemed, so often that she didn't always notice. As she pulled the clouds around her she was angry, as she flew she was angry. It wasn't something that could be helped she thought and so she didn't ever try to help it.

Fionna came out onto the balcony, shortly followed by the cat and her prince. Ice Queen was angry again, she couldn't help it, she never could. Seeing them together, that tomboy with her Gumball, it just made her so angry.

She came out of the clouds laughing, the spikes forming in her hands.

"It's Ice Queen," Fionna announced as if it weren't obvious.

"The prince shall be mine," Ice Queen cackled, the spikes leading before her.

"Back inside," Fionna called.

They all hurried back inside a moment before the massive spike of ice crashed through the wall. Ice Queen slid down, hands already crackling with energy.

"Out of my way, tomboy," she told Fionna.

The girl stayed put. "Ice Queen, why are you always predatoring on dudes?" she asked.

Ice Queen scoffed, "You should talk," she said. "Keeping all the babes to yourself, totally ice-blocking my game."

"What?" was the best the girl could do.

"Not this time," Ice Queen screeched, calling up an icy slush around her.

"Slush beast," Prince Gumball cried. Ice Queen wondered that he needed to point it out.

She hit Gumball and pressed him, within the slush, against the far wall. Ice Queen heard Fionna tell the cat to turn into a morning-star and heard the spinning as a plan formed in her head. She quickly froze the prince a moment before the cat hit and her slush went everywhere.

Ice Queen quickly shoved the frozen block of prince through the nearby door and transformed herself. She didn't much like the notion of being male, but it would have to do for now, she had an plan to carry out.

She stepped through the snow until she could see Fionna. How did that boy speak again?

"You saved me from the Ice Queen," she pointed out, despite it being false. He pointed out the obvious, didn't he?

"Oh, ah," Fionna blushed a little. "Yeah I guess, is she gone?" The girl looked around.

"She must have fled," Ice Queen told her. "Fionna" – might as well start sooner rather than later, Ice Queen figured – "you're so strong, and… you look so beautiful in the snow."

Fionna blushed and Ice Queen couldn't help thinking the girl was cute when she blushed.

Ice Queen didn't want to be stuck like this for long. "What are you doing later?" she asked the girl.

"I was just…" the girl looked flustered. "Going to go home."

"Come with me," Ice Queen said. "Let's go out."

"Go… out?" Fionna asked. It bothered Ice Queen to see the girl so hung up on her prince.

"Yeah," Ice Queen said. "Let's go somewhere."

"What?" was again all Fionna could manage.

Cake appeared, Ice Queen had all but forgotten about the cat. "We'd love to," she said.

"Great," Ice Queen forced, less happy that the cat would be there. "Meet me in the Castle gardens, in an hour."

Fionna seemed almost frozen, which was ironic, considering Ice Queen hadn't touched her, yet. Cake dragged the mute girl away. "Yes," the cat said. "We'll be there."

Ice Queen had to restrain herself until she was sure that the cat wouldn't hear before she burst out laughing. The one she hadn't frozen couldn't seem to move or talk. It was funny, she thought, that the girl was so hung up on another woman's man.

She sighed a little and smiled to herself as she lugged the block of ice containing her prince into the bedroom. It seemed fitting. She froze him to the ceiling for later and went off to look for something to give the girl that would impress her. For the plan of course.

A little less than an hour later, Ice Queen was hiding in the garden, waiting for Fionna when the girl turned up. "Let's just bail, I changed my mind," she heard the girl say and for a moment she was worried.

"No," she heard the cat say, forcefully. "No retreat girl."

Ice Queen rounded the corner to find that Cake had pulled Fionna down to her level. "Hello, Fionna," she said, stretching the greeting a little. "And I see you brought Cake." She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

"That's cool, right?" the girl asked.

"Only if it's cool that I brought" – the horse, thing, made a loud noise as it hit the ground – "Lord Monochromicorn," Ice Queen said.

"Hiya gorgeous," Cake said.

Lord Monochromicorn stamped a few times and raked the dirt, Cake's tail frizzed out and Ice Queen decided she was better off not knowing what had been said.

Moving on, she thought. "Accept these tokens of our esteem," she said.

"Eh, you didn't have to, guy," Fionna told her. Ice Queen almost protested at being called so.

"Nonsense," Ice Queen said. "For you, Cake" – she offered the cat the bag she held – "a satchel of nepetalactone, Locro picked it himself."

"Catnip," the cat, of course, exclaimed. "Sweet babies."

Ice Queen had to resist the urge to laugh as Cake started to tap the bag against her head.

"And for you, milady," Ice Queen turned to Fionna. "A bouquet of posies," she knew the girl would be flattered, but not impressed.

"Oh," Fionna blushed, "ah, they're…"

Ice Queen decided not to leave the girl hanging. "There's a surprise at the centre," she said.

Fionna pulled the little crystal from the centre, tossing the flowers aside as expected. Ice Queen made the thing turn into a sword, still looking awfully like crystal instead of the ice it was.

"Ha ha, a crystal sword," Fionna said, giving it a swing. Ice Queen liked the touch of awe in the girl's voice. "I'm all about swords, how did you know?"

"I pay attention to things I see you being, all about," Ice Queen managed, sure she'd just made a fool of herself.

"Thanks dude," Fionna said, punching Ice Queen lightly on the shoulder. "It's just," she looked at the sword, "wow."

The girl was practically drooling but for some reason Ice Queen didn't want to just laugh at that silly expression, it was cute, she thought. Why did she keep thinking Fionna was cute?

"Come," she told Fionna, getting up onto Lord Monochromicorn. "For the wowiness has only just begun." Somehow she didn't make a fool out of herself with that.

They were walking along shortly, or riding along would be more accurate and the cat started whispering. Ice Queen couldn't make it out, but she heard Fionna tell her to keep her voice down.

"Oh, Fionna," she said.

"Hey," Fionna said, looking back up. "What's up?"

"I thought we might have a little race," Ice Queen said. "A playful race, to marshmallowy mweadows."

"Ok," Fionna said. "But I'm gonna kick your butt," she blushed, "not that I'm thinking of butts."

"Excellent," Ice Queen said. "Hiya." This to Lord Monochromeicorn, who sped off and she missed whatever it was Cake said to the girl.

Cake almost caught them until they started up the cliff side and Ice Queen just beat them to the top, jumping off Lord Monochromicorn once they were into the field. Fionna jumped off the cat nearby. Riding was a lot more effort than Ice Queen had thought it would be, she was panting and it took a moment to recover herself.

"Good race, Fionna," she said. Undoubtedly she would have thought different had she lost.

Fionna didn't reply and Ice Queen couldn't think of anything to say. She hummed something almost tuneless to herself and looked around the place. Something sparkled in the flowers and she felt compelled to grab it for the girl.

She dived in and heard the girl shout behind her: "Gumball!"

It irked her again to be called such but she found she didn't mind when Fionna jumped in after her and grabbed her, picking her up. Ice Queen felt herself smile, which wasn't something she'd done much outside of practicing in front of the mirror and concocting her plans.

"Sorry," she said, not something she often said. "I saw a pear pigmy skull in there" – she held up the offending article – "it reminded me of you, the way your eyes sparkle." That was incredibly cheesy, but Ice Queen didn't even worry she'd embarrassed herself.

Fionna's eyes widened and did indeed sparkle as she stared at Ice Queen. She tried to keep in mind that it was her prince that Fionna thought she was staring at but couldn't help that the gaze she returned wasn't completely fake. The girl was just so cute.

It was some time later that they were flying on Lord Monochromicorn's back and Ice Queen felt the need to come clean. They were enemies, weren't they? Why did she want to just sit there and tell the girl how she was feeling? Why was she feeling things at all? This was not part of the plan.

"Fionna, there's something I want to tell you," she said. "I feel, like nothing was real, until I met you. I feel like we connect, and I really get you." The cat started playing that thing she'd been carrying around. "If I said you're a beautiful girl, would it upset you?" Ice Queen was almost surprised to find that she meant what she said.

Fionna was blushing, and it was adorable.

"'Cause the way you look tonight, silhouetted, I'll never forget it," Ice Queen found, almost to her surprise, that she was singing. These weird things were coming and she had to restrain herself avoid destroying them. How dare then interrupt.

Fionna got out her 'crystal' and Ice Queen turned it into a sword.

"Oh, oh Fionna, you fist has touched my heart," Ice Queen continued as the girl slashed at the first thing to come too close. It exploded like fireworks. "Oh, oh Fionna," – the girl continued to slash as Ice Queen sang – "I won't anything in this world keep us apart."

Finally: "I won't let anything in this world keep us apart," they sang in unison. Ice Queen couldn't help but think that the girl before her was beautiful.

Lord Monochromicorn made a low pass and Ice Queen and Fionna dropped off, laughing, the moment gone.

"Oh my gosh dude," Fionna said, Ice Queen again felt a pang that Fionna thought it was all Gumball, she didn't know. "That was like, the stupidest thing ever."

Ice Queen covered her reaction to that well, laughing instead. Of course Fionna thought it was Gumball, that was the whole point, wasn't it? Why would the Ice Queen give away her plan before it was finished? It was a good plan.

"See you back at the tree house," Cake called down, winking at the girl. Fionna blushed again and Ice Queen was again struck by how cute the girl was.

They lay in the grass a while, talking about nothing until an incredibly stupid question appeared in the Ice Queen's head. "Do you think I could wear my pants as a shirt," she asked the girl.

They both laughed at that.

"Gee I don't know I've thought about it," Fionna said. "But I think you could wear your pants as a shirt, if you really needed to."

Ice Queen laughed, wondering where such a silly thing had come from. She wasn't silly, was she? She was angry, wasn't she angry, angry and crazy were what she had. So what was she doing here? It wasn't just the plan. She couldn't have done this before she had spent time with Fionna.

"Ok, ok," she said, calming herself. "Now you ask me something."

"Oh, um…" Fionna had come with a serious question. "Is this a… date?"

Ice Queen smiled and stood, Fionna followed suit. "Fionna," Ice Queen said. "Come to the ball with me."

"As your chum?" Fionna asked. Ice Queen was almost outraged that Gumball had given the girl that notion. She had trouble for a moment, remembering that she was being Gumball and not herself.

"No," Ice Queen said. "As my," she paused, not sure she should say it, "girlfriend."

Fionna practically flipped out. "I'd better… go," she said, barely concealing her elation. Ice Queen forced herself to remember that it was part of the plan, Fionna thought it was Gumball who asked this. "Get… ready." The girl stammered, practically running off.

Ice Queen stood there a while, watching the girl's retreating back. She dropped down into the grass again and stared up at the stars, knowing she should get back to Gumball's castle, but she wanted to stay there longer.

What was going on? She couldn't work it out, barely a few hours ago she had hated the girl, hadn't she? She'd wanted to keep her away from Gumball and now she wanted to take the girl to a ball, as herself. It wasn't part of the plan anymore, not really.

But she couldn't just abandon the façade and tell the girl outright, could she? She couldn't drop her act and turn up at the girl's house, so what could she do? Why did she want to do anything at all? It was frustrating to not know why she wanted something. It wasn't new, she knew it wasn't new, but it was different this time, it wasn't the crown this time, it was her.

How had she changed so fast when she hadn't changed in all the years she'd known the girl? She couldn't bring herself to care about Gumball anymore, except in anger, how could he do that to the girl Ice Queen had seen that day? How could he keep her out like that?

It made her angry, but it made her happy too. Gumball didn't want her even though she wanted him, it was something she'd thought the girl and she shared. But it wasn't, Ice Queen wanted to keep Fionna away from Gumball, but it didn't have to have anything to do with Gumball.

She shook her head. Stick to the plan, the crown insisted, get the prince.

The ball was boring without Fionna, Marshal was interesting sure, vampires always interested the Ice Queen, but the ball was still boring. Ice Queen was talking to that crazy bun for almost ten minutes before she spied Fionna through the curtain over the door. She didn't even bother to excuse herself.

"I've been looking for you," she told the girl, pushing the curtains open.

"Well," Fionna looked a little uncomfortable in the dress, but it looked good on her. "Here I am."

Ice Queen forced a laugh. "Hey," she took the girl's hand. "I want to show you something."

Leading the girl away Ice Queen head Cake call after them: "Ooh, okay girl, I'll see you later."

She led the girl into the castle and up the stairs to Gumball's bedroom, they wouldn't be disturbed there. Easier to finish the plan, her crown told her. That wasn't quite what she had in mind but she knew better than to argue with the thing.

"What?" Fionna asked on entry, seeing the rose petals. "Hey, is this your bedroom?"

Ice Queen locked the door. "Fionna," she undid the button on the top of Gumball's clothes.

"Whoa," Fionna stepped back and the damn ice dripped. Fionna looked up to find the frozen Gumball. "What?"

Finish the plan, the crown insisted. No, Ice Queen told it, she was going to explain. But it was too late for that now, she'd argued with the thing. It didn't like to be argued with.

She could hear herself laughing as she peeled of the Gumball disguise. "This was so much easier than I thought it would be," the crown spoke through her. It wasn't what she wanted. If this was why she was Ice Queen then she didn't want to be Ice Queen.

But it was too late now.

She zapped at Fionna but the girl dodged, dropping her purse.

"This is really messed up, Ice Queen," the girl said and for once the woman couldn't disagree with her. "What is your problem with me?"

Hands on the ground, Ice Queen brought the ice up under the girl. "You're what stands between me and my gumball," she screeched. Was that what she sounded like? No wonder people thought she was mad.

Spikes erupted from the block of ice on which Fionna now stood and thankfully none of them touched the girl, tearing only her pretty dress. Fionna tore herself free, not sparing a single thought for the clothing.

"I can't believe I fell for this trash," Fionna said. Ice Queen was cut, it was trash, was it? She felt the anger coming back. "You got me to show up with a dress," Fionna continued, "and a pur… my purse, my sword."

Ice Queen had hoped the crown had forgotten the sword, but now it was back. Ice Queen felt herself throw spikes at the girl, who ducked and went for the purse, grabbing the sword from it. It extended, a final piece of false hope. Fionna's hands were trapped.

"You like my Ice Sword?" Ice Queen asked.

"Get it off me," Fionna shouted.

Ice Queen laughed, she deserved it, didn't she? She does, the crown assured her.

Fionna charged, jumping onto the taller woman's shoulders and hitting her, over and over with the ice that had formed on her hands from the sword. Ice Queen blasted her off with a stream of snow and the girl flew up to the roof, where Gumball was frozen.

She smashed the ice and dropped to the ground with Gumball. Ice Queen was buried under the falling ice, unable, for the moment, to get up and continue the fight.

"Oh my goodness," this from Gumball.

Cake burst in. "What's going on in here?" she demanded, and then spied Gumball and Fionna and charged. "Don't you touch her."

Fionna grabbed the cat. "Shh, it's okay, it's okay," Fionna calmed her friend. "It was the Ice Queen."

"Paws off my prince," Ice Queen was back up, blasting Cake from Fionna's hands and cackling.

Fionna leapt at her and knocked the crown off her head. But that wasn't enough, it never was, the thing was still there with her. Fionna kicked her back and the ice stopped. Ice Queen tried to use her magic but nothing happened.

"My magic tiara," she exclaimed. "My powers."

Fionna grabbed her. "And this," the girl said. "Is for yanking my heart-gut." Fionna punched the taller woman to the ground where she was immediately drenched with her own magic.

"Ha ha," Cake fairly cackled. "I'm a queen."

Fionna knocked the crown off. "No, you might catch her crazy," she said. Ice Queen wondered how she could know that. Cake looked a little angry and stormed off as Prince Gumball started talking.

"Wow, Fionna, you're just, really incredible," the prince said. Ice Queen was angry again, but it was her now, not the crown. How dare he take this long. "Maybe we should meet up," the prince said. "For a date."

The Queen's heart was in her throat for a moment before the girl pushed Gumball away. "No way man," she said. "Not interested."

Fionna sighed. "I think the reason I have all these guy friends, and now boyfriend," she looked like this was a revelation to her. "Is that I don't really want to date any of them. I don't need to feel like I'm waiting to be noticed, I know who I am and I'll know what I want when, and if, it ever comes along."

For some reason Ice Queen was happy to hear it. It didn't mean anything, not really, all it meant was that Gumball wouldn't be taking Fionna away and, even though that was almost the opposite of what she had feared at the start of the day, she found that comforting to know.


	2. Chapter 2

Fionna couldn't get it out of her and it made her mad, she hated that the Ice Queen had played her like that. She'd thought Gumball seemed a little different, sure he wouldn't normally have thought that way about her, but she had hoped. He's seemed so sincere, so sweet, so nice. And then there had been Ice Queen laughing at her.

It had been a good plan, Fionna would give the crazy lady that, but.. why?

She lay on the bed, warm and safe in her sleeping bag and listened to her sister's soft breathing, she lay there and tried to calm herself, tried to sleep. But she couldn't get it out of her head. Ice Queen hadn't struggled, hadn't complained, hadn't tried to stop them as they put her in a cell in the dungeon. She hadn't said a word since Fionna's little speech.

Fionna sighed, that had been what she wanted, she had wanted what Ice Queen had been giving her all day. She'd wanted warmth and affection that seemed to come from the heart. She'd wanted honesty and look where she'd ended up.

She sighed and rolled over, determined that she would sleep. She remembered that song Ice Queen had sung her, remembered that moment before they'd jumped from Lord Monochromicorn. That had been fake, hadn't it? It had all been fake.

She rolled over and spied her friend sleeping soundly. With a sigh Fionna got up and started to descend the ladder. "Where ya going?" Cake asked sleepily.

"Just getting a drink," she lied to her friend.

"Hmm," Cake was back asleep in moments.

Fionna climbed down the ladder into the living room and further down to the entrance. She quietly opened the door and shut it quietly behind her and started towards the candy kingdom. She needed to talk to the woman, needed to understand why Ice Queen had done that to her. She should have turned back, she thought, the woman was crazy, she'd just give a crazy answer.

But Fionna didn't turn back, she wanted some kind of answer and if a crazy one was the best she would get then so be it. She knew she wouldn't get to sleep until she'd talked to the Ice Queen. So she walked to candy kingdom. It took longer without Cake, but she didn't mind, it was cool night and the brisk pace helped to clear her head.

Not that it being clear was good.

Ice Queen sat in her cell, looking tired, and stared at the wall. She seemed to be lost in thought, occasionally sighing or shaking her head. Fionna didn't like to watch people's private moments, they always made her feel weird.

"Ice Queen?" Fionna gently interrupted the woman.

"Do you think I'm still the Ice Queen when I'm not wearing the crown?" the woman asked, looking up at Fionna. "Sorry, did you want something?"

"Well..." Fionna was taken aback by weariness in the woman's gaze. She shook her head, now was not the time to feel sorry for the Ice Queen. "Why did you do that to me?"

Ice Queen took a deep breath and opened her mouth as if to speak, but then she paused and shook her head. It took a while for her to speak again. "I figured I could get you alone and freeze you, so you wouldn't be able to stand between me and the prince," the woman said.

"So it was all fake, all to get me to go into that room with you so you could freeze me?" Fionna demanded, anger rising.

Ice Queen looked up at her and again seemed about to speak before she stopped. "I can't say," she said eventually. "It won't… I can't say."

"You're being weird, Ice Queen," Fionna told the woman.

"Aren't I always?" Ice Queen asked.

"Stop being weird," Fionna commanded.

Ice Queen got up, brushing off the back of her dress. "I can't," she told the girl, approaching the bars. "I haven't been… I just can't."

It was like something kept stopping her from saying what she wanted to say. Every time the Ice Queen started to make sense she couldn't. Something stopped her from making Fionna feel better and that was the entire reason the girl was there.

She wanted to know one way or the other if the Queen had just been tricking her the whole time. Fionna had no idea what she would do with the information, she couldn't have said if she wanted to know if it had been real. But she wanted to put the matter to rest.

"Why won't you give a straight answer?" Fionna asked, anger draining as she realised how hard it was for the woman to do so. It seemed like wasn't that the woman didn't want to, she just couldn't quite manage it.

"I can't give you an answer to that for the same reason you need to ask," Ice Queen told her. "I can't say yet, it… I can't say."

Fionna sat down on the ground a little distance from the bars that held the Ice Queen and sighed. Ice Queen sat down facing her, knees up against her chin. The two of them sat there in silence for some time before the Ice Queen spoke.

"I'm sorry I ruined your dress," she said.

Fionna hadn't expected that. "I didn't really like it," she admitted. "Cake made me wear it."

"It was a nice dress," Ice Queen said.

"Thanks," Fionna looked at her feet.

Ice Queen smiled a little.

Before Fionna really noticed, she'd started to nod off, it was quiet there, there wasn't anything there but for the Ice Queen, who was silent. Before she knew it she was properly asleep, she hadn't gotten what she wanted but somehow she didn't mind as much as she had before. She'd found out that the Ice Queen was less crazy than she had previously thought.

Or maybe it was another trick.

"Fionna," the voice was loud and seemed to belong to Cake.

"Leave me alone," she mumbled, "I'm sleeping."

"I told you."

Fionna heard the Ice Queen and sat up. She was in the candy dungeon. "What am I doing here?" she wondered, memory of the previous night hazy at best.

"What did you do?" Cake demanded of the Ice Queen.

"I haven't done anything," the Ice Queen sounded calm. "Give her a minute and I'm sure she'll be fine. What could I do anyway, without that thing""

Fionna didn't need to look at the woman to know she was pointing at the Tiara they'd taken from her. Cake appeared in Fionna's field of view. "Are you alright?" the cat asked.

"Yeah," Fionna said, looking around.

"Any idea why you're here?" Cake asked.

"I came here last night," Fionna said. "I think I needed to ask the Ice Queen something."

"What could you possibly want to know from her?" Cake asked.

"I don't really remember," Fionna lied. "I was pretty tired."

That was weird, she thought, she didn't keep things from Cake, she'd never been able to keep things from her friend. But she didn't want to tell Cake about this, at least not until she'd gotten an answer. She just didn't think her friend would understand.

"Ice Queen," Cake turned to the woman in the cell. "What did Fionna ask you about?"

"I'm not sure whether she would want to share it," Ice Queen said, looking at the girl. Fionna got the impression the Ice Queen knew she'd lied. "I'm sure it will come back to her and you can ask her then."

"Of course she'd share it with me," Cake asserted. "We're best buds."

Ice Queen shrugged. "I don't know that," she said.

Fionna noticed she was still sitting in the same place she had been last night. She hadn't moved all night as far as the girl could tell. It took the girl a moment to realise that that meant the woman had spend the night watching her sleep.

Cake escorted Fionna from the dungeon, leaving Ice Queen by herself in that quiet place. "What's going on Fi?" Cake asked almost as soon as they were outside.

"I bet she's messing with us," Fionna replied. "Remember the last time she was in there, we ended up in the cell."

Cake nodded, not like she was convinced.

"I swear Cake, if I remember what I needed to ask her I will tell you," Fionna felt bad lying outright to her friend. She would tell the cat one day, but only after she'd gotten a straight answer out of the ice witch.

"Ok," Cake said, cheering up a little. "What do we do today?"

"I don't know," Fionna said. "We'd normally be rescuing princes from the Ice Queen."

Cake laughed. "Let's go home and play Beemo until someone asks for help," she said.

"Sounds good."

So they sat on the couch all day and played Beemo and didn't talk at all about the Ice Queen, which Fionna appreciated but for the fact that they weren't talking about Ice Queen. It was an obvious thing they were not doing.

Eventually it came time to sleep and again Fionna couldn't manage it. She lay on her bed and wondered what it was that kept Ice Queen from answering questions and why the woman had covered for her.

Fionna sat up in bed. "Cake," she whispered, not wanting to needlessly wake her friend. There was no reply so Fionna got up and again went to visit the dungeon. She just couldn't keep herself from it, there was something going on with Ice Queen and she wanted to know what it was.

"Hello again, Fionna," the Ice Queen said. "You're the only person who visits me, you know."

Fionna sat down a little distance from the bars and Ice Queen sat down on her side of the bars. She didn't know what to say, she still had all the same questions and she knew Ice Queen couldn't answer them. There was nothing for her to say.

"Why did you cover for me to Cake?" she asked eventually.

"You have been nicer to me than she has," Ice Queen told her with a little smile. "I know we don't really get along, ever, and I even know why that is. But even after what I did to you, you aren't even short with me."

"Well I'm just a nice person," Fionna said, it wasn't the whole reason, but it was enough.

"You know, I…" Ice Queen tried her best, Fionna could see it. "Can't say."

Ice Queen sighed and lay back, stretching her legs out before her where her knees had been tucked up under her chin before. The woman's dress bunched up revealing thin, light blue, legs. Nice legs, Fionna thought, not like her muscled ones. Fionna realised that she was staring and was glad the Ice Queen didn't see her blush.

"Is there some way I can help you?" Fionna asked, she was determined to get answers.

"You can," Ice Queen told her with a sigh, she didn't sound happy about this. She continued before Fionna's hopes could get too high: "I can't tell you how, though."

It was Fionna's turn to sigh. The woman couldn't answer questions and couldn't say why, she couldn't even tell Fionna how to help. Fionna was all about helping people, it was the biggest part of her job, it was what she was good at.

"This is the longest I've ever gone without my powers," Ice Queen suddenly told her. "It still won't go away though."

"What won't?" Fionna asked, trying not to get her hopes up.

"It… won't," the Ice Queen curled up on the floor of her cell. "I can't tell you."

Fionna sighed. "Why can't you tell me?" she demanded, frustrated, despite knowing the answer. "What is stopping you?"

"Why do you even bother?" Ice Queen asked, sitting up. "I can't answer your questions."

"Why are you so weird, Ice Queen?" the girl asked with a sigh.

"Natural talent," Ice Queen lay back down. "That and the voices in my head."

"What made you weird?" Fionna was out of obvious questions.

Ice Queen sat up again and grinned at the girl. "Brilliant," she exclaimed. "The crown made me weird, it made me crazy and magical."

"The crown is why you're crazy?" Fionna asked, not sure if she should be sceptical or not.

Ice Queen nodded emphatically. "It certainly did," she said. "And not a day goes by that it doesn't remind me. That crown is what made me a witch, it is why I am this way."

"So, if the crown were gone, you'd be able to answer my questions?" Fionna asked.

The Ice Queen thought about it for a while. "I don't know," she finally said and looked as if she would continue, but stopped and sighed. "I can't say."

That decided it for the girl, she needed to get the crown away from the witch before her, or get the witch away from the crown. She couldn't move the Queen far, and wouldn't know what to do with her is she did, so that left the crown.

"I'll come back tomorrow," she promised the woman, getting up.

Ice Queen watched as Fionna took the crown and left the place with it. She took it from the castle, from the candy kingdom, to her favourite place to leave things she didn't want. Cake had found it and had left something there not long ago.

She hoped the lake knights would not try to put the crown on, she was certain it would go badly.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

Ice Queen felt the crown leave the room, she felt it leave the building and she felt it get further and further away until she almost couldn't feel it anymore. But it was still there with her, it wasn't going away any time soon, it seemed. The distance did help her, but it didn't free her.

You need to get me back, the crown told her. How? She asked in return, Fionna won't tell me where she put you. The crown was silent, she wasn't arguing with it and she was right, Fionna wouldn't tell her where the crown was, not even if she asked nicely.

Ice Queen yawned, finally tired now that the damn thing was gone. She hadn't been able to sleep with it staring at her. She climbed into her bed and quickly fell asleep, not caring in the least that she was falling asleep in a dungeon.

Her head hurt with a fury and she knew she hadn't been asleep nearly long enough. It was day now, she could tell that much, but that wasn't important. Her head was pounding and her mouth way dry and there was no way to get anyone to come down to help her.

She turned over on the bed and tried to get back to sleep, but it didn't work. The pressure in her head was astounding, she could barely see through it much less sleep. The best she could do was lie still and try not to aggravate it.

The pain did not fade and so the woman just lay there, trying to be still and quiet as best she could. She hadn't ever felt anything like this before, sure she'd been in pain enough time when she fought with Fionna and Cake. But this was something else.

"Ice Queen?" Fionna's voice was quiet, which Ice Queen appreciated "Are you alright?"

Ice Queen debated staying where she was, but she needed water, badly. She rolled over and the pain flared, she groaned and kept her eyes closed. She had to clear her throat, causing a bout of coughing and incredible pain, before she could speak.

"I need water," she croaked at the girl, eyes still closed.

Fionna got up, Ice Queen could hear it. She hadn't heard the girl come in but she certainly could hear her leave. It was so louder than it should have been. She knew that it wasn't the girl's fault, she would have been doing her best to be quiet as it must have been night again for Fionna to come back. So why was it so loud it hurt?

Ice Queen heard the girl coming from the top of the stairs, each step like a nail into her brain. She tried to cover her ears but the movement just made it worse. Nothing seemed to help, Fionna closed the door behind her and the sound made Ice Queen moan.

"What's wrong, Ice Queen?" the girl asked, she was quiet and it still hurt.

Ice Queen opened her eyes and regretted it, sat up and regretted it, got out of bed and regretted it. She walked over to the bars and reached for the glass Fionna held. The girl took a step back before realising what the woman wanted, it seemed the woman looked frightening, she wouldn't have been surprised even if she'd had the energy.

Ice Queen drained the whole glass and almost immediately started to feel better. She hadn't had anything to drink since midday the previous day when Peppermint Maid had brought her food. She hadn't been back that day.

"Thank you," Ice Queen said. It caused pain to talk but she was feeling much better now.

"Are you alright?" Fionna asked, standing close to the bars and talking quietly.

"No," Ice Queen told her, staying upright just behind the bars.

Make her tell you where the I am, the crown told her. Her head felt like it was on fire, it hurt so much she couldn't see, couldn't think, couldn't stand, couldn't… anything. The world was slow to come back and she found herself curled up on the floor of the cell. Fionna was kneeling, looking worried, but she remained silent, which Ice Queen appreciated.

She couldn't bare the notion of even talking back to that voice in her head, much less telling it to be quiet. "Where did you put the crown?" she asked the girl.

"Somewhere you can't get it without your powers," the girl told her. "I thought you would be glad to be rid of it."

Ice Queen didn't even try to tell the girl that that was the case. "I just wondered to know where you'd put it," she told the girl.

"I don't think I should say," Fionna said.

Make her tell you, the crown insisted. It hurt more than the last time, Ice Queen felt tears in her eyes and all she could do was again curl up on the floor. It took longer this time for the world to resolve back into focus. It was the crown that caused her this pain, there wasn't anything for it but time.

"I know you still have questions," Ice Queen said. "But I need more time."

Fionna didn't argue, despite what Ice Queen had once thought, the girl wasn't stupid. Ice Queen didn't want more time, she needed it. She could barely talk, couldn't think, couldn't argue. There was something still wrong with the woman and Fionna could see it.

She didn't say anything more but Ice Queen heard her retreating back up the stairs. The woman couldn't even bring herself to get back into the bed. She lay there on the floor, still in the foetal position and she knew she wasn't going anywhere yet.

She woke to the sound of someone else coming down the stairs. It wasn't Fionna, Ice Queen was surprised to find that she could tell by the sound that this was the case. It was Peppermint Maid, she pushed the tray into the cell.

It grated on Ice Queen's brain. She'd never had a headache that lasted so long before, nor one that hurt so much, but she was almost getting used to it. She sat up and watched the monster walking away. Ice Queen still had her witch eyes, she could see the spirits and magic in the world despite the absence of her crown.

Peppermint Maid was probably the most evil thing Ice Queen had ever seen and it she always wondered that she was a maid rather than the evil overlord of Ooo. It had something to do with Gumball, surely, but Ice Queen couldn't have said what.

Ice Queen thankfully drank the water the monster had given her and considered the food for a while before deciding that if she was going watch her waistline, something she strived to do, she would have to forgo eating candy every day. She found the notion of food almost nauseating at the time anyway.

You need to keep your strength up, the crown said. The voice wasn't as loud as it had been but it still hurt, it hurt enough that Ice Queen didn't even notice that she'd doubled over, still sitting, with her head between her knees. But she didn't lose her mind this time, she could still see and hear and think.

If you want my strength up you should stop talking, she told the crown. Now that, that hurt. It hurt so much she could feel the tears in her eyes, knew she was again on the floor in the foetal position but could do nothing. It hurt enough that she knew she wouldn't do it again.

The crown did not argue, for which she was intensely glad. She couldn't have handled anymore pain and she knew it, she'd never thought that before. She'd never been at her limit before, hadn't even known that she had a limit.

Deep breaths, she told herself and soon she managed to unwind and sit up again. She had to push the food further away, the sight of it now was almost enough to make her sick. When she ran out of room for the food she pushed herself further from it, all the way to the back of the cell where the light barely reached her.

She sat in the gloom and closed her eyes, she didn't wish to be back in her Ice Kingdom, she just wished to be out of this place. She hadn't done anything that bad this time, so why had they kept her here so long? It was an easy question. It was because they could, this time. She'd never let them capture her before and never let them keep her.

She was bored of this place and, bereft of her powers, she wouldn't be doing anything until she could make something that gave her power but didn't add another voice to her head. She knew she couldn't deal with something like that anymore. Maybe without that voice in her head she would do good, or at least less crazy.

The headache was still there when Fionna entered once more, but it wasn't nearly as bad. She had spent the whole day in the dark with her eyes closed. It helped that the crown hadn't spoken again and she certainly hadn't tried to talk to it.

She heard the door open and opened her eyes to see the girl come close to the bars to try to see the woman in the dark. Ice Queen stood wearily and came closer to the bars, out of the gloom in the back of the cell.

"Do you want that?" the woman asked, indicating the tray of food, which continued to induce nausea. "I can't bring myself to eat it."

Fionna shrugged. "Sure," she said, reaching through the bars to take the tray. "Are you feeling better?"

"Much better, thank you," the Ice Queen said. It surprised her to hear genuine concern in the girl's voice, but if there was one thing she knew about Fionna it was that she was nice.

They both sat down where they did every night and Ice Queen watched as the girl obliterated the meal she'd been given. The girl was just so cute and she didn't seem to care at all that Ice Queen was watching her eat.

"What have you been up to since I've been here?" Ice Queen asked as the girl finished her food. "I imagine there'd be less to do with me locked up."

Fionna, as always, seemed a little confused at Ice Queen's interest. "Rescuing princes from you wasn't all we did," the girl gave her a little smile. "Though I will admit that it was a large part, there is still other stuff to do."

She was just so cute, Ice Queen wanted to give her a hug, or something. "I imagine you want to know if I can answer you yet," Ice Queen said.

"Yeah," Fionna said. "I can't seem to sleep, I get distracted easily. I can't stop thinking about when you were pretending you be Gumball, how nice you were to me. Was it all a trick?"

Don't answer, the crown practically shouted. It hurt, it hurt a good deal, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been before, it didn't block out anything anymore. It just hurt.

"It was a hastily concocted plan," Ice Queen said. "I froze Gumball and hid him when you hit my slush beast with Cake. I asked you out because I didn't want to spend much time as the prince, I don't really like turning into other people. But throughout the day…"

She trailed off and the girl looked frustrated.

"How would you feel if it wasn't fake?" it occurred to Ice Queen to ask.

"I don't know," the girl was honest, that was definitely something to be said about her. "But I want to know either way. I can work it out afterwards."

"It was a plan, it all went according to the plan," Ice Queen said. "But that wasn't really why I did most of it. I meant that song I sang you, and throughout the day I kept thinking you were really cute when you were flustered."

Fionna was flustered, she blushed at the last and obviously had no idea how to feel about this. Ice Queen couldn't help herself.

"Like now," she said. "You are really cute."

"You're just…" Fionna couldn't seem to think of the end of that sentence.

"I know you don't think of me as honest," Ice Queen said. "But I mean it. I was going to tell you and the you noticed Gumball on the ceiling and the damn crown took over."

You dare! The crown was loud again but again it didn't hurt nearly as much as it had before. Ice Queen rubbed her temples to try to alleviate the stress, but it didn't help. The pain wasn't really coming from anything physical.

"Ice Queen," Fionna exclaimed, concerned but obviously glad to have something else to think about. "Are you ok?"

"I am much better," Ice Queen told her. "But when it talks to me it hurts, it hurts much less today, so I can be honest with you."

"So it was the crown that stopped you answering me?" Fionna asked. "I was afraid yesterday that I had guessed wrong and you wouldn't be able to talk to me."

"You were right, it was the crown that stopped me," Ice Queen said. It hurt again but there were no words. "I get the impression the thing is leaving me alone now."

"Like right now?" Fionna asked.

"I think that by tomorrow morning it will be gone," Ice Queen said.

"Maybe we can let you out then," Fionna said.

"You could probably let me out now," Ice Queen said. "As far as I can tell I don't have any power left, except my damn witch eyes."

"Can they be used for evil?" Fionna asked with a smile.

"The only harm they cause is to me," Ice Queen told the girl. "Some of the things I see are really creepy, you don't even want to know."

"I do now," Fionna complained. "Is there a way you can show me?"

"I could draw you a picture?" Ice Queen suggested. "I'm not much of an artist though."

"You can't just give me witch eyes?" the girl asked.

"I could give you my eyes," the Ice Queen replied. "But then I'd be blind and you'd be grossed out."

Fionna couldn't help but laugh a little at that. They talked almost as if they were friends for a while before Fionna seemed to realise that she had been talking to the Ice Queen as if they were friends. It was that realisation that confused her. She had been mostly ok with knowing Ice Queen liked her but the idea that she liked Ice Queen was a little too much.

"Probably better that you go because Cake wakes up and wonders where you are," Ice Queen suggested, saving the girl the trouble of having to excuse herself.

Fionna glanced at the window, where it was still dark. "Probably," she said, not convincing anyone. "I'll come back tomorrow to see if we can let you out yet."

"I look forward to it," Ice Queen gave the girl a little smile and watched as she left.

They were going to let her out, the woman probably would have celebrated if she hadn't still been in pain. As it was she didn't even stop smiling when she drifted off to sleep. She hadn't slept properly for days and it was like heaven. And just she couldn't help but think of the cute girl who was trying her hardest to help.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Sorry it took so long to update, I don't really have an excuse, the rough was finished almost a week ago. I have been on holiday and enjoying my nothing, that is my excuse, that and downloading (I mean, of course, buying in a totally legal manner) the entire ATLA series. The story is about to kick in, it starts its creeping at the end of this chapter, but it may still take a little while. I will do my best to update more, but I can't really promise anything.

* * *

"Ice Queen," Fionna said, gently shaking the sleeping woman. It seemed a shame to wake her when she was finally sleeping so peacefully, but no one else was willing to wait until the witch woke.

Ice Queen slowly opened her eyes and grinned up at the girl. "Hello," she said. "What are you doing here?"

Fionna fought off a blush from the woman's tone, Ice Queen was happy to see her. "I'm here to escort you from the dungeon," Fionna told the woman.

"At least I get a pretty escort," Ice Queen said drowsily.

Fionna couldn't fight off the blush this time. "Come on," she said. "You're keeping everyone waiting."

Ice Queen sat up to see Gumball, Cake and Peppermint Maid. "Everyone came to see me off," she exclaimed. "Thank you all."

Fionna was glad the woman seemed to be in considerably better spirits than the previous few days. She was starting to seem a little like her old eccentric self again which wasn't always a good thing, but it was better than trying to freeze people or kidnap princes.

Gumball didn't seem quite so happy about it, and Cake was looking at Fionna kind of funny. "Let's go," the cat said. "We have better things to do."

"Better than escort me home?" Ice Queen looked offended.

Fionna fought not to laugh, that would just annoy her friend. "Come on Ice Queen, let's go," she said. "Surely you want to go home."

"Not really," Ice Queen admitted, getting out of bed. "But I should probably check how my penguins are going anyway. You have been feeding them, right?"

Fionna almost freaked out. "No one asked me to," she said. "I didn't know they needed it."

Ice Queen patted the girl on the shoulder. "They don't," the woman told her. "I just wanted to see how you reacted to that."

Fionna was immensely relieved, Cake was not amused. "Let's go already," the cat said.

Ice Queen sighed. "Fine, sourpuss," she said. "Onward."

Cake remained unamused and didn't stop with the weird look she was giving Fionna. They followed Gumball out of the castle and Fionna and Cake escorted Ice Queen all the way to the edge of the candy city.

"Are you going to leave me here?" Ice Queen asked, looking almost sad but for the grin she was obviously trying to fight down. "All alone by myself with no powers and no way to defend myself?"

Cake gave an exasperated sigh. "I'm sure you'll be fine," the cat said.

Fionna hadn't thought about it, but Ice Queen really was defenceless without her powers, she wasn't strong enough to defend herself, didn't have any weapons or any friends. She would be completely defenceless if they left her on her own and she wasn't exactly free of enemies.

"We have to take her home, Cake," Fionna said. "She can't defend herself without her crown."

"Where is her crown anyway?" Cake asked. "I figured we would have given it back by now."

Ice Queen's eyes widened almost in fear and she shook her head. She cringed a moment, rubbing her temples again, but it didn't seem to be as strong even as the previous day.

Fionna leaned over to the cat so that the woman wouldn't overhear where the crown had gone. "I threw it in the lake with the lake knights," she told her friend. "I figured she'd get better if the crown was gone."

"What are you whispering over there?" Ice Queen asked.

"I don't want you to know where the crown is," Fionna said.

Ice Queen cringed again but didn't even ask where the thing was hidden.

Cake looked at Fionna for a while and Fionna looked right back. "Alright," the cat eventually relented. "We'll take her home."

"Alright," Fionna said. "Let's go, Ice Queen."

And so Cake begrudgingly came along as Fionna escorted Ice Queen back to the Ice Kingdom, something of a long walk. There was almost no conversation due, mostly, to the cat's unhappy presence and Fionna's desire to not tip her friend off the to the possibility that she didn't mind spending time with Ice Queen.

She suspected it wasn't working as well as she wanted it to.

Ice Queen was shivering, FIonna hadn't ever seen the woman do that before. It was cold in the Ice Kingdom, that was the point, Ice Queen was the queen of ice, she couldn't be cold. 'Do you think I'm still the Ice Queen when I'm not wearing the crown?' The woman had asked Fionna only a few days ago, maybe she wasn't the queen of ice anymore.

If she was cold, Ice Queen didn't let on. She turned in the doorway. "Thanks for escorting me all the way from the Candy Kingdom," she said. "Even though Cake didn't want to."

And with that she disappeared into her castle and Fionna didn't know what to do. The woman had obviously been freezing, but she hadn't said anything, Fionna couldn't help the woman if she didn't want to be helped, what would she do anyway? Bring Ice Queen home with them?

"Fi, let's go," Cake said, growing so that the girl could jump on her back.

With a little sigh Fionna jumped up onto her friend's back and they wandered off looking for something to do. It was about time they found something interesting to do, they hadn't had an adventure in a week and Cake was starting to get a little weird.

They ended up chasing the swamp monster who had, yet again, decided it was a good idea to kidnap tiny prince. The monster seemed to have a thing for the prince, but just wouldn't talk about it, resorting, instead, to kidnapping the little man over and over.

It was almost night when there came a knock on the door. Fionna went down to check who it was and found Ice Queen standing outside, looking a little ill. She found that she was glad to see the woman, and concerned that she seemed unwell.

"Hello Ice Queen," she said, opening the door. "How can I help you?"

Ice Queen managed a weak smile and Fionna's brain stopped working. "Well, it seems I have a cold," the woman said with her weak smile. "Which, as I'm sure you know, is a little ironic and has never happened before. I was wondering what you're supposed to do when you get a cold."

Fionna shook her head, trying to get her brain to work. "You've never had a cold?" she asked. "I guess being the Ice Queen it makes sense."

"Not that I remember at least," the woman said. "So what am I supposed to do?"

Ice Queen sniffled and Fionna was amazed to find that the woman could be cute. "You have to drink hot stuff and stay in bed," Fionna told her. "Mostly you have to stay warm."

"Warm," Ice Queen repeated, like it was a foreign concept, and maybe it was. Ice Queen was the queen of cold, so it must have been a weird thing to have to be warm.

"Do you want to come in?" Fionna found herself asking. "I'll make you some tea if you want."

Ice Queen smiled warmly and Fionna almost melted. Since when had she reacted so strongly to the woman? "That would be amazing," the woman said. "But don't you think Cake would mind?"

"Too bad," Fionna said. "You don't know how to look after yourself, so I'll help."

Ice Queen smiled again and followed the girl into the house.

"Dude, who was it?" Cake asked as Fionna ascended the ladder back into the kitchen. When Ice Queen immediately followed the question was answered. "What's she doing here?" the cat asked, tone now almost cold.

"She has a cold, so I'm making her some tea," Fionna told the cat.

Ice Queen waved.

"A cold?" Cake was sceptical. "She's leaving once you make her the tea though, right?"

"Sure am," Ice Queen responded.

"But you have to stay warm," Fionna complained. "You live in a palace made of ice."

Ice Queen didn't appear to see the problem. "I'll be fine once I know how to make tea," Ice Queen said. "No need to worry."

"No need to worry," Cake repeated. "She can just go home."

So Ice Queen watched Fionna fill the kettle, put it on the stove and get her a cup with some tea leaves. She watched the whole process, making Fionna feel incredibly self-conscious, as if she wouldn't measure up to the woman's expectations or something.

Ice Queen sat down at the table and accepted the tea from Fionna with thanks. She sipped from the cup and sighed contentedly. Fionna almost melted again, she had done that, Ice Queen was happy because of her.

"Fi," Cake said. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Fionna approached the cat, who was sitting on the couch, playing Beemo. "What's up?" she asked.

"In private, I meant," Cake said.

They went up to the bedroom, leaving Ice Queen sipping happily on her warm beverage.

"What's with the grinning?" Cake asked. "It's a little weird."

"I was grinning?" Fionna asked, she really hadn't noticed.

"You were smiling ear to ear," the cat confirmed. "What's going on?"

"I don't know, maybe I'm happy," Fionna suggested.

"Dude," Cake had her serious face on. "You only started grinning when Ice Queen got here."

Fionna was well aware that she didn't have a poker face to speak of. "You sure?" she asked.

"Yeah, grinning from ear to ear," Cake said.

"Weird," Fionna said. "Anyway, I think we should let her at least stay the night."

"You aren't getting out of this," Cake said. "Also, why?"

"Dude, she's sick," Fionna said. "We can't send her back to the Ice Kingdom, she'll die."

"We could take her there" Cake suggested.

"I didn't mean that," FIonna said. "She'll just keep getting worse if she goes back there."

"So what?" Cake asked. "She isn't our friend."

Fionna was appalled. "Because you don't like her, you'd let her die?" she demanded, a little too loud.

"Dude, keep it down," Cake said. "I didn't mean that, I just… that lady is crazy, you can't be letting her into our house."

"She has no magic," Fionna pointed out. "She's basically harmless."

"But she's still crazy," Cake protested.

Fionna had a moment of clarity. "Unless you tell me what your problem is, stop protesting," Fionna told her friend. "She needs help so we will help, that's our thing, isn't it? We help people."

Cake sighed. "Alright, but if she breaks anything you have to fix it," that cat said, jumping back down the ladder.

Fionna climbed down after her.

"Ice Queen," Fionna walked back over to the table where the woman sat with her hands around the cup of tea.

"Hmm?" the woman sounded drowsy. "Thanks for the tea, it was good."

"It wasn't a problem," Fionna said. "Anyway, it has been decided that you will stay here tonight, at least." Cake cleared her throat but Fionna ignored her.

"I wouldn't want to impose," Ice Queen said. "I'm sure I'll be fine at home."

"It would take you ages to get back and it is already dark," Fionna pointed out. "And it you try to sleep in a bed made of ice you will probably die."

"Die, you think?" Ice Queen looked sceptical. "I have been around for a while, I haven't ever died from sleeping in my ice bed."'

"Have you ever tried it without your crown?" Fionna counted.

"A fair question," Ice Queen admitted. "I haven't ever been sick before either, that I recall at least. So maybe you are right, but die?"

"Maybe not right away," Fionna was forced to admit. "But you would get worse, and then you would probably be unable to get up and you would just get worse and worse until you died."

"But you'd save me, right?" Ice Queen asked with a sly grin.

"I wouldn't even know you were sick," Fionna said.

Ice Queen looked slighted. "You wouldn't visit?" she asked, obviously fighting a smile.

"Will you two flirt somewhere else?" Cake asked. "I'm trying to play Beemo here."

"We weren't flirting," Fionna replied, a little too loud, and her friend gave her a sly smile.

"So do I get the couch?" Ice Queen asked. "I'm kind of tired."

"You get my bed," Fionna told her. "I have a great many blankets on there and I can't be bothered moving them, I'll sleep on the couch."

"Are you sure?" Ice Queen asked. "We could share the bed."

Fionna felt like her face was on fire. "I… I'll be f… fine," she stammered, shocked.

"I was joking," Ice Queen said. "You are just so cute when you're flustered."

Fionna only blushed deeper.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but it is mostly because I ran out of time in the story. The plot is finally kicking in (stuff is going to happen now) and there may even be some of the characters from the show in the next chapter.

Ice Queen stood by the bed and seriously considered climbing in fully clothed. She had always been self conscious about her body, or at least for as long as she could remember, and the prospect of getting undressed in front of Cake, who didn't like her regardless, was rather daunting.

"Are you just going to stand there?" Cake asked.

Ice Queen did her best to hold in a sneeze, and failed miserably. "No," she sniffled. Cake was a good person, she reminded herself, even if the cat was a little upset at the moment.

She pulled off her dress and wormed in under the covers. She'd never really been warm before, or maybe she had. She didn't remember if she had or not. Maybe she had once but had forgotten over time. But it certainly was comfortable, she hadn't been this comfortable for a long time.

It was late in the morning when Ice Queen woke, she somehow felt both better and worse. It was a rather aggravating predicament. She couldn't remember ever being sick before so she didn't know whether she was getting better or getting worse. She was well rested but felt sicker.

She lay in the bed for a while before deciding she should at least have something to eat, and maybe some more tea. She hadn't really had much tea previously and had discovered that she quite liked the stuff, at least when Fionna made if for her.

Ice Queen pulled her dress back on and climbed down the ladder into the kitchen, which she found empty. Beemo was sitting on the couch and appeared to be asleep, or the game console equivalent, whatever that was. Ice Queen didn't know where anything was so she decided to look around.

She found the food, the tea, everything she could possibly want for breakfast, but instead of making herself some she continued to look around. It was weird to find a huge room in the trunk of the tree house filled with treasure, she hadn't noticed it the previous night. What could Fionna and Cake want with treasure? Did they buy things?

She was looking through a pile of rings when she heard the girls enter the house at the bottom of the treasure room. She wondered if it would look more suspicious to be sitting around doing nothing or looking through the treasure and decided it didn't matter. They could be suspicious if they wanted, she was having fun.

"What are you doing up there, Ice Queen?" Fionna called from the bottom of the ladder, starting up.

"I found a whole pile of rings here," Ice Queen replied. "Where do you guys get all this stuff?"

"Mostly people give it to us," Fionna said, reaching the same level as the Ice Queen. "Some of it's quest junk. We don't have any use for it."

Ice Queen tried on a ring. "Why not wear any of it?" she asked, holding her hand further away to look. She shook her head and pulled the ring off again.

"Do I really strike you as someone who wears jewellery?" Fionna asked, picking up a ring and looking at it for a moment. "I'm not really into that stuff."

"I guess trinkets aren't really important," Ice Queen said. "And I think you look good without them anyway."

Fionna smiled, blushed and ran out of things to say. "Have you had breakfast?" she asked after something of a pause.

"Not yet," Ice Queen told her. "I thought I should ask you before raiding your pantry."

"We appreciate that," Cake said, stretching past where Fionna had stopped on the ladder.

Fionna started up after the cat. "Come up," she told Ice Queen. "I'll make you something."

"Are you sure?" Ice Queen followed the girl up the ladder, wondering why FIonna wore such short skirts and why she would enjoy the view quite so much. "I don't mind cooking for myself."

"Let her do it Fi," the cat called down. "I want to know if she can."

"That's fine," Fionna told the Ice Queen. "I figured you wouldn't know where everything is."

"I got bored so I had a look around," Ice Queen said. "Which is mostly how I ended up playing with your jewellery. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," Fionna said, helping the woman up onto the next floor.

"You didn't take anything, did you?" Cake asked. "We do have some magic rings lying around somewhere."

Fionna looked outraged but Ice Queen responded first. "I wouldn't take anything, Cake," Ice Queen told the cat. "And most magic rings are about as much use to a magic user as any other ring."

"Most?" Fionna looked interested.

"I've heard of a couple that are much like my crown," Ice Queen said. "I don't know the exact details, but they are magic artefacts that happen to be rings."

"Well, we don't have any of those," Cake said.

Fionna stuck her tongue out at Cake. "She wouldn't take anything, Cake," the girl told her friend.

"I'm going to have some breakfast," Ice Queen informed the pair, deciding to leave that particular conversation before they started fighting.

"I'll show you where everything is," Fionna said, leading her towards the kitchen area.

Ice Queen didn't protest, it seemed that that would probably make avoiding conflict easier.

"So are you feeling any better?" Fionna asked. "You seem better."

Ice Queen chose that time to start coughing. "Do I?" she asked.

"Bad timing," Fionna said. "But how are you feeling?"

"Good and worse," Ice Queen said. "I got a good sleep, which hasn't happened for a while, but I am also sicker."

"Do you want me to make you some more tea?" Fionna asked.

"That would be incredible of you," Ice Queen told her. "The tea you made yesterday was amazing."

Fionna blushed again, she seemed to do that quite often. "It's no trouble," she assured the woman.

So the pair made breakfast together, Ice Queen cooked and Fionna made the tea. It seemed to the older woman that there wasn't anything special in the way the girl made the tea and it appeared to be ordinary tea. But still when she sat down with Fionna at the table and had breakfast and drank tea with the girl, it tasted amazing.

Almost immediately after they'd eaten Cake asked the woman: "Are you going to go home now?"

"It seems like I can't," Ice Queen told the cat. "But if you want me out I can try find somewhere else to stay." She emphasised the word 'try' in an attempt to make it obvious that few would let her stay.

"Where else could you stay?" Fionna asked, then turned to her friend. "Do you have any ideas Cake?"

The cat sighed as in defeat. "None," she told the girl. "You can stay as long as you don't break anything important, Ice Queen."

"I think I'll be fine on that front," Ice Queen informed the cat. "I didn't bring any of my penguins."

Fionna grinned, and even Cake smiled at that. The pair had both been exposed to the penguins penchant for breaking things that were at the very least expensive and generally important.

"Why didn't you bring any penguins," Fionna asked.

"I wasn't really expecting to stay long," Ice Queen admitted. "I only live with them because we both live in the same place, or at least used to."

"Used to?" Fionna enquired.

"It seems like I can't anymore," Ice Queen explained. "I don't really want to get too sick, do I?"

"Fair enough," Fionna shrugged. "You should stay with us, at least until you find somewhere else."

"Thanks," Ice Queen smiled at the girl. "I'm sure I'll have to take you up on that."

"So you're only here because you don't have another choice?" Fionna asked with a little smile.

Ice Queen grinned at the girl. "I'll admit ulterior motives," she said. "I mean, you're pretty and you can cook."

Fionna blushed right on cue. "Th-Thanks," the girl stammered. Cake sighed mightily and Fionna stuck her tongue out at her friend.

Ice Queen grinned at the girl and immediately started coughing. "I guess I'm sicker than I thought," the woman admitted.

"Do you want to go lie down?" Fionna asked, immediately looking concerned.

"It would probably make me feel better," Ice Queen said. "Maybe some water as well."

"I'll get you some," Fionna said brightly, practically running off.

"What did you do to the girl?" Cake demanded. "She pretty much glows when you're around."

"She does a bit," Ice Queen conceded with a smile. "I was honest with her, that was all. She wanted to know if it had all been a trick and I told her that it hadn't, not all of it anyway."

"You attacked us," Cake pointed out.

"Did I win?" Ice Queen asked in return. "I was going to tell Fionna the truth and then the damn prince dripped on her."

"You can't blame Gumball for that," Cake sounded outraged.

"I don't, it is just the easiest way to convey my anger at the matter," Ice Queen explained. " I was going to tell her the truth, but then she noticed on her own and freaked out. The crown told me to stick to the plan and I argued."

"The crown talked to you?" Cake was concerned, understandably.

"And it didn't take kindly to argument," Ice Queen said. "It forced me to attack you."

"Does it still talk to you?" Cake asked.

"No, it stopped yesterday," Ice Queen told the cat. "I got sick soon after."

"You got rid of the crown and then got sick?" Cake confirmed.

Ice Queen nodded. Fionna came back with the glass of water and Cake was silent.

"What are you guys talking about?" Fionna asked.

"Penguins," Cake said.

"She was asking if they tasted any good," Ice Queen looked upset with a grin. "It was rather upsetting, and they don't taste any good."

Cake actually laughed.

"At least you two seem to be getting along," Fionna said.

"It's definitely an improvement," Ice Queen said.

"Why would you want to eat a penguin?" Fionna demanded of her friend.

The cat shrugged. "I'm a cat," she explained. "Penguins are technically birds."

Fionna looked scandalised and Ice Queen couldn't help but laugh, it was a good expression on the girl. She looked cute again. This time, Cake laughed too, Ice Queen glanced at the cat, surprised that Cake was laughing with her, even if she was laughing at Fionna's expression.

Fionna suddenly looked thoughful.

"Way to bring the mood down," Cake complained. "What are you thinking so hard about anyway?"

"I… don't want to say," the girl told them, blushing.

"I guess we'll have to make you," Cake said with a grin. Ice Queen glanced again at the cat and saw an expression she knew.

She jumped up with the cat and Fionna started running. They chased her, or tried their best. Ice Queen hurt, she broke down. Huge hacking coughs raked her body and she couldn't even stay standing. It hurt, tore at her throat and chest and it just kept going.

The chasing immediately stopped and they both turned her to where she cowered of the floor, her whole body shaking mightily with each cough. It hurt and she didn't want it to hurt. She felt so much worse than even just a moment past. It was terrible.

She felt the pair lift her and carry her up to the bedroom where they placed her under the covers. She just couldn't stop coughing, she felt herself curl up under the covers but the coughing still shook her, head to toe.

It felt like an eternity before the coughs stopped and it was all she could do to curl up and fall immediately asleep. She'd never been sick and she wasn't appreciating that she now was. She knew what Cake had meant when she had asked 'you got rid of the crown and then you got sick?'. She even knew that the cat was right. That was what had happened.

Her dreams were not the calm that she was used to.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** I will probably be uploading less for a while to come, even though I have my buffer up a bit more. I am going back to university tomorrow and so I won't have as much time. I will do my best to upload at least once a week, but I don't know how much time I will have. So the plot has finally kicked in. Some characters will turn up in the next couple of chapters.

* * *

Fionna and Cake both stayed in the room with Ice Queen for a while, even after the woman stopped coughing and fell asleep. Fionna watched her sleep, the woman wasn't peaceful like she had been that last night in the dungeon. She was troubled, she wasn't happy the way she had been before.

It upset her to see the woman that way. "We have to do something, Cake," she informed her friend as they climbed back down into the living room.

"Like what?" her friend asked.

"I don't know," Fionna admitted. "Do you think she has pneumonia?"

"I don't know," Cake returned. "But it's certainly worse than a cold, maybe flu?"

"I don't know how to cure flu either," Fionna exclaimed. "This is really bad, isn't it?"

"Looks that way, sorry buddy," Cake said they sat in the kitchen for a minute looing sad at each other and then Cake suddenly perked up. "I know," she exclaimed. "We should visit Choose Goose, she has all kinds of stuff, I bet she'd have a remedy."

"Yeah," Fionna was immediately ecstatic, she always hated not having a plan. She practically bolted down the ladder and out the door and fidgeted as she waited for Cake to follow. "Hurry up." She instructed the cat.

"Dude, calm down," Cake tried to sooth her.

"She could die, Cake," Fionna told her friend. "How am I supposed to be calm?"

"Why do you care so much?" Cake asked her.

"She's going to die, Cake!" Fionna practically screamed at her friend. "How can you ask that?"

"I didn't mean that," Cake said, "I just… whatever, jump on."

Cake stretched until she was the size of a horse and Fionna jumped on her back. Cake ran as fast as she could and Fionna knew it was only because she was freaking out. Cake didn't care for the Ice Queen all that much, even if they did seem to be getting along now. But Cake was Fionna's friend, so they made all haste to Choose Goose.

"A cure for the flu?" the goose asked with a grin. "I haven't got a clue."

"Well…" Fionna hadn't been expecting that, Choose Goose had everything, that was the point. "Do you know where we could find something?"

"You have the book," Choose Goose pointed out. "Take a look."

Fionna grinned. "Thanks, Choose Goose," she said, starting back home already.

"Your glee is enough for me," the goose assured her with a grin.

"What's she talking about?" Cake asked once Fionna was astride once again.

"The Enchiridion," Fionna told her.

"Come to think of it, that may be the only book we own," Cake mused.

FIonna shrugged.

They burst in and up the ladders to where Fionna kept the Enchiridion, next to her bed. Ice Queen didn't even stir as the girl rooted through her things to find the book. Ice Queen wasn't looking good, she had stopped coughing but she didn't look well, almost grey instead of blue.

"We need to hurry it up," Fionna complained, leafing through the book. "She looked grey, you know who else is grey?"

Cake shrugged. "Marshall?" she suggested.

"More like green," Fionna said. "But you are on the right track" – Cake grinned – "dead people are grey." The cat stopped smiling.

"She was breathing," Cake reassured her friend. "I could hear her breathing."

"She isn't dead, she is just getting there," Fionna said. "Found it."

She almost jumped up and did a dance.

"What did you find?" Cake asked.

"There's a cyclops whose tears heal anything," Fionna told her. "It says right here in the book."

"Let's go then," Cake said, jumping right out the window. Fionna laughed and followed, Cake catching her before she could hurt herself.

"Onward, mah trusty stead," Fionna called, jumping up onto Cake's back.

Cake whinnied and they were on their way, both laughing. It felt almost like they shouldn't be laughing, but enjoying the journey was what Fionna was all about. And she always enjoyed a journey more when Cake was with her.

They came to a fork in the road with a sign that pointed both ways but had no writing on it. The stump it was made from had a face on it and appeared to be asleep. Which way were they supposed to go? There was a big bramble bush separating the two paths, so they couldn't really just co in between.

"Check the book," Cake suggested. "Which way do we go?"

"Ring ring," the sign said. "There are two choices, guys. The path on the left, the 'Hair Fallout Path': no more hair again, ever. Or the path on the right, 'Smelly Path': makes you smelly, forever. You won't believe it."

"Isn't there another way?" Fionna asked. She jumped down off Cake, who shrank down to normal size.

"No," the sign told her.

"Hmm," Fionna looked around the place. "But what if I just…"

"No," the sign insisted. "You have to choose."

Fionna leaned over to Cake and whispered. "We can just go over," she said. "I bet you could stretch us over the bramble."

"I'll have a look," Cake stretched her legs up until she looked like little more than a dot to Fionna.

"What are you doing?" the stump asked. "You have to pick one of the paths."

"Dude," Fionna said. "I don't want my hair to fall out, and I don't want to be smelly, so we are just going over the bramble."

"The smelly path isn't all that bad," the stump offered. "That bush stretches all the way to the river."

Cake came back down. "It's pretty big," she said. "I don't think I could stretch all that way. You could just cut through, you brought your sword."

"Hey, yeah," Fionna pulled her sword. She stepped over the stump. "Sorry for not obeying your rules," she told the angry face. "But I like my hair and odour."

The stump just sulked as Fionna started cutting. It took a while and a fair amount of tearing of clothes and scratching of skin to get all the way through the bramble to the other side. Where they found a raging river and a bush with a face on it. The river appeared to have a few stepping stones on it.

"Ring ring," the bush said. "Hello, dummy police… yes, there are some strange dummies lurking around my house… oh, ok… yes, thank you, goodbye."

"What?" Fionna was somewhat confused by this. "We need to cross this river."

"You can't get across the river it's impossible," the bush said. "Look: The current, it's so strong it'll turn your butt inside out for real, doofus, and the water's so acidic, it'll crump your boat in half. It's like orange juice, it's gross. There's a bridge, but it's a trap and the water's jamming with electric eels. That's it, there's no other way around, you dummies."

"I have a magic cat," Fionna stuck her tongue out at the bush. "Cake, you think you can stretch between those stones?"

"Yeah," Cake nodded. "Get on my back."

Cake just stretched then from stone to stone while the bush hurled insults from back on the shore, complaining that they weren't supposed to be able to get across. The bush's voice faded under the sound of the river by the time they were halfway across.

They got across and were into the forest, where the Enchiridion said they would find the cyclops. Fionna got off Cake and they walked together up the bank into the body of the forest, where they came across a small hairy woman and a fair amount of melons.

"Excuse me, friends," the woman said. "You're pretty tall, could you reach up there" – she pointed into the branches of a small tree – "and get my wheel for me? Gotta get these melons home to my husband, you know how it is."

"I don't think I could reach that," Fionna said. The wheel was stuck fairly low on the tree, above Fionna's reach, but the girl could have climbed up if she had needed to. "But my friend here is magic," she reassured the woman. "She can get it."

"How'd you get it up there anyway?" Cake asked, stretching an arm up to grab the wheel.

"It was weird," the woman told them, gratefully taking the wheel from the cat. "I hit a rock and the wheel practically flew off."

Fionna and Cake helped the hairy little woman get all the melons back onto the cart once the wheel was back on, and escorted her home. Her home was in the direction they were going so it made sense to go with the woman in case the cart spontaneously exploded or something.

"Hey Rain," the woman called when they reached the tepee. A little hairy man came out. "These girls helped me get the melons home."

"Thank you," the little man said.

"It wasn't a problem," Fionna assured them. "We're going this way anyway."

"Yeah," Cake chimed in. "We're looking for the cyclops, do you know where she is?"

"Only a bit further on," the woman told them, pointing. "Once you reach a clearing there is a rise, which is actually where the cyclops is sleeping. Also, she's a bit weird about people taking her tears."

"Thanks," Fionna said.

She and Cake followed the small hairy woman's instructions and soon came to a clearing with a rise.

"How do we wake her up?" Cake asked.

Fionna shrugged. "Hey cyclops," she shouted. "Wake up."

The hill stirred and then broke apart as a giant cyclops stood up. She turned around to see Fionna and Cake. Her pupil was the shape of a peanut, Fionna found that to be rather strange. But then again it did appear to be a one eyed giant made from the landscape, so maybe strange was relative.

"You're here for my tears, aren't you?" the cyclops asked, her voice was rather deep. "Well you can't have any, because I never cry."

"I need your tears," Fionna called up. "My friend is dying and I don't know what else to do."

"You're just trying to get me to cry, so you can steal my tears," the cyclops accused Fionna. "But it won't work. I've got a heart of stone, I'm evil."

"Dude, my friend is dying," Fionna shouted. "I need your help."

"You won't get my tears," the cyclops shouted back

"Cake, wrap her up," Fionna instructed. "I have a plan."

Cake stretched her arms and legs around the cyclops until the giant couldn't stand. The pair came crashing down to the ground. Fionna fished in her bag as the giant struggled against Cake, but she was like living rope, she wasn't coming loose.

Fionna finally found an empty jar in her bag and approached the giant's head cautiously. "I need you to cry into this jar," she told the cyclops.

"I won't cry," the cyclops told the girl.

Fionna groaned. "My friend is going to die," she pleaded.

"You're just saying that to make me cry," the cyclops protested. "I told you, I have a heart of stone, I don't care about your friend."

"Gah," Fionna was frustrated. She just lashed out and struck the giant, in the eye. She hadn't meant to do that but the eye just started watering.

"Success," the cat exclaimed.

Suddenly the jar seemed miniscule once filled. The cyclops just kept crying and an idea struck her. She pulled on the giant's head and it came right off, for some reason that was exactly what Fionna had expected.

"Let's go Cake," she told the cat, who extracted herself. "We'll give your head back later," she told the cyclops. "But I need to keep it until my friend gets better."

They retraced their steps passing the bush by the side of the river, who took the opportunity to continue shouting insults, and the road sign, who didn't even talk to them. Cake ran as fast as she could, infected by Fionna's enthusiasm, and it took much less time to reach their home than it had taken to find the cyclops.

Cake stretched them up the ladders into their bedroom where Ice Queen was still sleeping. She looked even worse now, her skin properly grey and her hair starting to change colour. Punching the cyclops in the eye again they poured the tears all over Ice Queen, and the bed. Fionna had been slightly to excited to consider the bed.

Ice Queen started, but it was wrong. She hadn't gone back to blue skin and white hair, she had light brown skin and dark brown hair, and her eyebrows were normal now, which was just weird. She didn't look right at all.

Ice Queen looked human.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** I have to say that I am surprised at the attention that this is getting, none of the stories I posted to fictionpress were this popular. I really appreciate all the feedback and encouragement I am getting. Enjoy this chapter while you can.

* * *

Simone Petrikov woke with a raging headache to find a young girl holding a giant one eyed head and a cat standing on two legs gazing at her with intellect at least equal to human in its eyes. She rolled over and closed her eyes again, it wasn't real, she was still dreaming, wasn't she?

She didn't really recall the dream she'd had, but she knew it had lasted a long time. There were bits and pieces, it was after she'd found the crown, that strange crown. She'd had magic, hadn't she? It was ridiculous, it had to have been a dream. Maybe this was just lingering strangeness, she would roll back over to find nurses, she was in the hospital because she hadn't been able to get the cold out.

But she had left, hadn't she? She had had to go home to… to get the crown.

It was all a dream, she told herself and, mustering her courage, rolled over again. To find that she was alone in the room. It was still the same room, wooden with a trunk, or maybe big branches, through it.

She pulled herself out from under the happily smiling furs on the bed. That was definitely strange, the eyes seemed to follow her, but at least they didn't talk or anything. She was wearing a dress she never would have been caught dead in.

She pulled it off and found herself incredibly thin, she was so much thinner than she recalled, barely more than skin and bones, and wearing almost nothing. Surely there should be some clothes around. If this really was the hospital they would have gowns at least. But it didn't look anything like the hospital, maybe she'd been moved, maybe she'd been asleep for a long time, that must have been why the dream was so long.

She looked around and found a cupboard with a draw pulled out, there was a bed in that draw and the rest were filled with random things. There was a wardrobe near the bed and when she opened it she found clothes, but after pulling out a couple of garments she was forced to accept that none of it would fit her.

The headache was nagging at her, she didn't want to remember any more of her dream, but she didn't seem to have much choice. She tried to distract herself as the images shifted slowly in. She pulled the dress back on and carefully climbed down a series of planks that had been nailed into the tree, a makeshift ladder.

She reached a lower level to find the cat playing what looked a lot like some sort of game console, the giant's head resting near the couch and the girl staring intently. Memories sifted in, this was a place she knew, a place she had dreamed at least, and these people, she knew them too.

Her head throbbed, she needed some aspirin. Would they speak the same language as her? Would they know what aspirin was?

"Do you have any aspirin?" she asked.

The girl and cat looked at each other. "I don't know what that is," the girl admitted with a shrug. "What do you need it for?"

"I have headache," Simone told the girl. "I need some sort of pain killer."

"Aren't your tears supposed to cure everything?" the girl admonished the severed giant head, walking towards the kitchen area.

"They do," the head assured the girl, it had a deep voice. "This must have developed afterwards."

"Did that giant head just talk?" Simone asked no one in particular.

"You're lucky it's shut up," the cat told her.

She was not dealing well with this. The girl turned up just in time, handing her a glass with a smile. "We don't have any pain killers, but this should work," the girl told her.

It looked like water but tasted a little salty, which was weird, and it certainly did work. She was fine for almost five seconds, at which point the headache returned in force. She wasn't getting out of it that quickly. The memories trickled in without any sort of order.

"I have go lie down," she said, again to no one in particular. "You don't have another bed, do you, the faces are a little creepy."

"Faces?" the cat asked, getting up.

She got to the hollow where the ladder lead up and her legs stretched. She just stretched up. It was too much for Simone. Talking cats weren't too bad, talking severed heads were a little worse, stretching was just a touch too far. She fainted.

She woke in the same bed with new blankets on it. Maybe it was all a dream, she theorised, until noticing the cat standing by her bedside. Or maybe it wasn't a dream, she sighed. She didn't like it not being a dream.

She remembered leaving the hospital to get the crown back, and then nothing for a long time. She remembered snippets of interaction with the giant cat and teen before her. But it wasn't coherent at all, she didn't have any solid memory of after she'd put the crown back on.

Maybe try to start over, she thought.

"I'm Simone," she said, offering a hand to the girl. "Can you tell me where I am?"

"In our tree house," the girl offered, looking suddenly upset. "I'm Fionna, and this is Cake."

The all shook hands.

I made her upset. The thought didn't seem to be her own, and it certainly wasn't the crown, so who was it now? It was only a piece of a thought, she didn't hear anything else from that voice, at least not immediately.

Simone got up, she was still wearing the dress, she hadn't ever really liked dresses, being the sort of person who would often spend time exploring old ruins or digging for ancient treasures, she had been a collector, hadn't she? A scientist. Until she found the crown.

"Do you know where I can get some clothes?" she asked the girl, Simone was more comfortable with her, she seemed normal enough, even if she was living in a tree house with a talking cat.

"You don't like the dress?" the girl appeared surprised.

"It isn't what I prefer to wear," Simone tried to be polite.

"You've worn it as long as I've known you is all," Fionna said. "I suppose we could go get you some new clothes."

"How long have we known each other?" Simone asked. It was starting to seem less and less like it had been a dream, more like memories she had blocked out. She could barely remember a thing after she got the crown back. On a thought she touched her head. "Where's the crown?" she asked. "Last thing I remember is getting it back, where did it go?"

"I can't say," Fionna told her. "But I took it from you a few days ago and hid it."

"Hmm," Simone was contemplative for almost a full minute. "It is probably for the best, it wasn't really much good. Though the headache I have is very reminiscent of the headaches I would get when I went too long without the crown."

"So the tears didn't cure your headache?" Fionna asked. "I may have to hit the head again."

"They worked for a moment," Simone reassured the girl, wanting to avoid violence. "I have a feeling that this headache is from something similar to the crown, it won't go away for physical things."

"Hmm," it was Fionna's turn to look contemplative.

"How about some clothes then?" Simone asked.

"Clothes," Fionna exclaimed. "Always a good distraction."

"Where do we go?" Cake asked.

Simone still wasn't used to that.

"I don't know," Fionna said. "Though we should probably put the head back on the cyclops first, I said I would give it back when Ice… Simone was better."

"What were you about to call me?" Simone asked.

"Ice Queen," the girl admitted.

"Why?" Simone was perplexed. "Why would you call me that? I don't know you."

"It has been your name as long as I've known you," Fionna protested, looking upset again.

I made her sad again, the voice complained. It sounded a lot like her own voice, but it wasn't, it was like the crown, she heard it in her head and it made the headache worse. Unlike the crown it didn't appear to be crazy.

"My name was Ice Queen?" Simone confirmed, that didn't sound right. She'd been called that, she remembered that from before the crown, but to have it as a name?

"It was, and it has been for a long time," Cake told her. "You don't remember anything?"

"I remember being in hospital because I just couldn't get warm," Simone told them, she had no reason to lie and she thought that maybe giant cats can smell lies. "But my head started to ache and the crown told me to go home and get it back. I had to do what it said, you see, it made the pain so much worse."

"I recall that," Fionna told her.

"After I went home and put the crown back on, I can't remember anything," Simone told them. "I have tiny fragments, but nothing solid or intelligible."

"Do you think Choose Goose has anything for memory?" Fionna asked the cat.

"I couldn't say," Cake shrugged. "But she didn't have anything for sickness, so maybe today is a bad day. We should ask Gumball, he's a scientist, isn't he?"

"That would be awkward," Fionna complained, looking at her feet.

"Why would it be awkward?" Simone asked, almost excited at the prospect of meeting a scientist, even if it was a scientist named 'Gumball'.

"He asked Fionna out," Cake told Simone. "She didn't say yes."

"Stop talking about it," Fionna instructed. "It doesn't matter now, Simone needs something to bring her memory back. But first we have to put the head back on the cyclops, then we can get I… Simone, some clothes and visit Gumball, apparently."

"Where are we going to get some clothes?" Cake asked.

Fionna looked thoughtful. "Maybe we should visit Gumball second and see if he knows where we can get some new clothes," the girl suggested. "I think all the places we know are empty by now."

"We could try where the fish people hang out," Cake suggested. "There is probably at least some fabric there we can use."

"I know how to sew," Simone offered.

"So do I," the cat replied.

"I don't," Fionna mentioned.

"You should have seen the dress I made Fionna," Cake said wistfully. "Or remember it at least."

"Did I see it?" Simone asked.

Fionna perked up. "I'll go get it," she announced. She fairly leapt down the ladder into the lounge and Simone and Cake could hear her searching there.

"Why is she getting the dress?" Simone asked the cat, determined that she would get used to the talking cat, or at least pretend it was a little person in a suit.

"When you were Ice Queen you tore it," Cake said. "Maybe she thinks it will bring back your memory, or at least some of your memory."

"I tore it?" Simone asked, she couldn't see herself committing any kind of violence.

"Well, I guess the crown made you do it," Cake said. "That's what you told me anyway."

"The crown was bad in that way," Simone said. "At first I didn't remember the things I did and then I wished I didn't. Why was I Ice Queen?"

"You were the queen of ice," Cake said. "The crown gave you powers to do with ice, you lived in a mountain made of ice and slept in a bed made of ice."

"Why?" was the best that Simone came up with.

The cat shrugged and Fionna reappeared, dragging a torn white dress behind her up the ladder.

"Here is the dress Cake made for me," she said, presenting the thing to Simone.

"I wouldn't have thought something like that would be your style," she said without thinking. The cat made her wear it, the voice told her. "I don't mean any offence by that," she hastily assured the girl. "I'm sure you looked great in it."

Fionna blushed and Simone couldn't help but agree with the voice this time. Fionna looked cute when she was flustered.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** I feel like this chapter is poorly constructed, it was hard to write because it is necessary but nothing important happens. I promise that the next one will be more interesting and I will try to get back to this and make it more interesting. Stuff is going to get to happening in the next chapter.

* * *

Simone didn't enjoy riding on Cake's back at first, but after the first ten or twenty minutes of absolute terror she seemed to get over it and by the time they reached the fork in the road with the talking tree stump the woman seemed to be enjoying herself.

Fionna wasn't dealing well with Ice Queen not being Ice Queen anymore, she didn't have a problem with Simone, but she didn't know the woman and the woman didn't know her. She had liked Ice Queen, liked her a fair bit, and now Simone had no idea who she was.

"Are you going to take one of the paths this time?" the stump asked, not sounding hopeful.

Simone fairly screamed. "A talking stump," she pointed out.

"Do you think she was alive before the mushroom wars?" Cake asked. "I heard that there weren't things like this back then."

"She looks like she's human," Fionna told the cat. "So that may be the case. I thought I was the last human, but it might not be the case."

"How about Samson?" Cake asked.

"I haven't given up hope," Fionna assured the cat. "But it seems unlikely."

"What are you two talking about?" Simone asked. "Who's Samson?"

"Probably a fish person," Cake said.

"He may not be," Fionna interjected. "We haven't proven it either way."

"Why do you think he might be?" Simone asked.

"He lives with a tribe of fish people," Fionna admitted. "But they all wear headgear like mine" – she gestured to the bunny ears on her head – "so without taking it off we can't be sure."

"How do you know they are fish people then?" Simone asked.

"Are you going to just stand there and talk about fish people?" the stump demanded.

Simone twitched, but didn't scream this time.

"Follow me," Fionna instructed, stepping over the stump.

Simone gingerly followed suit, quietly cursing the dress as she waded after Fionna into the brambles behind the sign. "Why didn't we take one of the paths?" she asked the girl.

"The path on the left is the 'Hair Fallout Path': no more hair again, ever, and the path on the right is the 'Smelly Path': makes you smelly, forever," Fionna explained. "Or that was what the stump told me, so we just went through the bush."

"Isn't this bad for the giant head?" Simone asked.

"Probably not the best," Fionna admitted. "But it is already decapitated, how much worse can it get?"

If the head had any objections, it didn't voice them.

"So, how do you know that the fish people are fish people?" Simone asked, obviously not forgetting what they had been talking about.

"We may have… accidentally set some of them on fire," Fionna admitted. "They were attacking the candy kingdom and things got a little out of hand."

Either Simone accepted that there was a place called 'candy kingdom' or she ignored it. "So you set them on fire?" she asked, sounding a little shocked.

"It was an accident," Fionna protested. "We were putting the fire out and Cake decided to puff herself up and blow on it."

"She blew on the fire?" Simone asked, sounding again a little shocked. "Didn't you know that was likely to spread it?" this was obviously directed at the cat.

"I didn't really think about it," Cake sounded a little embarrassed.

"I guess if you were under attack you would have been a little panicked," Simone allowed.

"It worked out in the end," Cake defended herself. "We scared them off and no one was really hurt, and we showed that they were fish people and not humans."

"So Samson is a fish person?" Simone asked.

"He didn't catch fire," Fionna said. "So he didn't take off his headgear, so we don't actually know."

"Ah," Simone appeared to be appeased.

They came out the other side of the bush and found the little bush with a face and the river. Simone looked apprehensively at the bush. "How do we get across the river?" she asked.

"Ring ring," the bush said. "Hello, dummy police? The dummies are back, and they brought another dummy, yes… ok… thank you."

"Eep," Simone couldn't quite contain the little squeal. She grabbed Fionna's arm and half hid from the bush.

"Shut up," Fionna told the bush. "We are just returning the severed head."

Cake stretched out again. "Get on my back and I'll stretch us across," she instructed Simone.

Simone obviously didn't want to.

"The water is fast," Fionna pointed out. "It is also acidic and swarming with electric eels. You can stay here with the bush if you want, it shouldn't take long."

Simone glanced at the bush and climbed up onto Cake's back.

She screamed again and held on tight around Fionna's waist as the cat's legs extended between the stones in the river. Simone's eyes were sqeezed shut and she was breathing fast by the time they reached the other side. Fionna helped her down, where she just sat down and breathed for a while.

"That was…" Simone started, but couldn't seem to think of the right word.

"It was fun," Fionna informed her. "Come on, and don't worry, there will be no more stretching until we have to go back."

"Unless we have to restrain the cyclops again," Cake pointed out.

"Cyclops," Fionna spoke directly to the decapitated head. "You are not going to fight us, I told you my friend was sick and she was, and I promised to return your head and that is what I am doing."

"Alright," the head replied, sullen.

Cake shrank down and they walked up until the forest, past the house of the small hairy people, and out to where they had left the body of the cyclops. It was enormous, weirdly it seemed bigger now without the head on, but it was sprawled out on the ground.

Fionna put the head back, much as she had taken it, and it reconnected. It was weird almost that that made sense, if the head came off so easily then it should go back on just as easily. That wasn't a rule that applied much of the time, but here it did.

The cyclops thanked them for returning its head and they were on their way. Simone didn't scream this time when they crossed the river, but she hung on tightly to Fionna and squeezed her eyes shut much as she had the previous time.

Again she quietly cursed the dress as they forged their way back through the bramble. The dress was torn and dirty by the time they were back on the road.

"That wasn't too bad, was it?" Cake asked the woman.

Simone nodded.

"Well it was the worst part," Cake said, matter-of-factly. "I'm sure Gumball won't hold freezing him against you, you do seem to have changed."

"I froze him?" Simone asked, horrified.

"I shouldn't have said that," Cake chided herself. "Don't worry," this to Simone. "No harm was done, it may have been good in the long term." At the last she glanced at Fionna, who tried not to let her reaction to that show.

"How could he not be angry?" Simone asked. "I froze him. How did I freeze him?"

"With a zap?" Cake suggested, making the motion that the Ice Queen had often made when zapping something with ice. "He won't be mad, you could apologise if you want, but you are pretty much a different person at this point. He may not recognise you."

"What did I look like?" Simone asked.

"Blue skin and white hair," Fionna told her. "That dress suited you better at that point."

"I imagine it would have," Simone replied, obviously having trouble with the image. "Blue and white? I don't even like blue."

It took them a while to get to the candy kingdom, at which point Simone was really freaking out. She asked why it was called the candy kingdom so Fionna demonstrated by taking a bite out of a tree and offering a handful of dirt.

Upon eating dirt that tasted a lot like chocolate Simone was having some issues, which only got worse as they walking into the city, passing living pieces of candy. The palace was a little better, there were less people. Until they found Gumball.

"Is he pink?" Simone asked Fionna. "Why is he pink?"

"He's made of bubblegum, I think," Fionna told her. "Ask him, I've always wondered."

"That would be rude," Simone protested.

"Hello Fionna and Cake," Gumball said, getting up to greet them. "Who's your friend?"

Simone stepped forward and offered a hand. "Simone Petrikov," she told the prince. "It's nice to meet you."

Gumball took her hand in surprise. "Prince Bubba Gumball," he told her. "I'm sure I've heard the name Petrikov before."

"I'm sorry, but I haven't heard of you," Simone told the prince. "I have been informed that I froze you, and I would like to apologise for that."

Gumball's eyebrows went right up. "Ice Queen?" he asked.

"That is what I was called in the past, by all accounts," Simone said. "But please call me Simone."

Bubblegum turned to Fionna and Cake. "This used to be Ice Queen?" he asked. "She hasn't tried to kidnap or freeze me at all."

"I tried to kidnap you?" Simone asked, shocked.

"Don't worry about it," Gumball told her. "How can I help you guys today."

"Obviously Simone has lost her memory of being Ice Queen," Fionna pointed out. "We were wondering if you had anything that could fix it."

"Why me?" Gumball asked.

"You're a scientist right?" Fionna asked. "Isn't this sciencey?"

"Not really," Gumball told them with a shrug. "This is all pretty much to do with magic."

"But she doesn't remember any of us," Fionna complained. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Wait?" Gumball suggested. "I can't say, it's all magic."

Simone looked a bit disheartened to hear that.

"Do you know where we can get some clothes?" Cake asked Gumball. "Simone wants some new ones, she doesn't seem like much like that dress anymore."

"I could ask Peppermint Maid," Gumball suggested. "It might take a little while, but it would easier than scrounging through the junkyard. I don't think there are any clothes left there anyway."

"I had thought of that," Fionna told him. "I figured we would check underground, where the fish people are. But it would be much easier to have Peppermint Maid make some."

"If she doesn't mind," Gumball said. "It would probably take at least the rest of the day."

"It would have taken us at least that long anyway," Cake said. "If not longer, depending on how much we could find to either make or mend."

"I'll get her now," Gumball said, he climbed back up the stairs onto the podium with his throne and pulled a bell-cord. They all heard a bell ring somewhere in the castle and Peppermint Maid appeared almost immediately.

She stared at Simone for a moment before asking Gumball: "What did you need, prince?"

"Ice… Simone here would like some new clothes and I thought you could make some, if you don't mind," Gumball told her.

Simone didn't seem to have a problem with the giant talking mint, though her headache appeared to be acting up again. She was rubbing her temples with a grimace. Fionna hadn't brought any more of the cyclops's tears with her.

"Of course," Peppermint Maid told him. "If you would come with me Miss, I might already have something to fit you."

"That would certainly be helpful," Cake said.

Fionna watched the woman leave the room with Peppermint Maid, still rubbing her temples and still obviously in pain. She didn't know what to do about the headache or what to do about the memory loss or what to do about anything to do with the woman. She liked the dress that Ice Queen had worn, but it certainly didn't suit Simone.

"Don't worry," Cake told her, obviously guessing what she was thinking. "I'm sure that her memory will come back soon."

"What's the problem? Gumball asked. "I know she was improving, but it seems like this is a massive improvement."

Cake sighed.

"How can you say that?" Fionna demanded of him. "She has pretty much been erased. That isn't good no matter who it happens to."

"Maybe it is a little harsh," Gumball admitted. "But Ice Queen was a menace."

"It was the crown that made her do that," Fionna insisted, frustrated. "You would have been a menace with that crown on."

"I would not be a menace," Gumball insisted.

"Hmph," Fionna sulked.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** I just spent my evening and early morning finishing the roughs of the rest of this fic, unfortunately it isn't that long, but I like it well enough. The updates will still be every few days because I seldom get more chances and because I am already working on a sequel.

* * *

Simone was trying very hard not to freak out, not to throw up, and not to groan with the pain she felt in her head. She was being led through a pink castle by a talking giant mint, wearing a maid outfit and walking. It was disconcerting to put it lightly.

The maid hadn't talked at all since they were out of the main hall. This whole place was weird, Gumball, who was apparently a scientist, and apparently made from gum, was a prince, which she hadn't expected. He was weird like everything was weird, it was just too weird.

She wasn't enjoying this place, not even a little bit.

"What sort of clothing did you want?" the maid asked, quite some time after they had left the main hall behind them.

"I used to wear a suit," Simone told her. "A shirt and grey or black pants would be enough though, if the whole suit is too much."

"Hmm," was the response.

They kept going for what felt like a long time, Simone couldn't detect any kind of direction, but she was pretty sure she'd never been there before. A thought occurred to her, as they did from time to time.

"Do you think you could cut my hair as well?" she asked. Her hair was almost to her ankles and it weighed her down.

She hadn't ever had such long hair before.

It was a lot easier than she had expected, somehow. She hadn't expected it to be difficult or anything like that, she hadn't known what to expect. She had found herself mildly surprised that the clothes weren't made of candy or something.

She was certainly apprehensive about a giant piece of candy wielding scissors near her head, but Simone let the maid do it regardless. Peppermint Maid had done her best to find clothes that would fit Simone and her preference. So Simone didn't expect the mint to hurt her. That didn't make it easier letting the mint near her head with a sharp object.

But the result was rather similar to how Simone had looked back before she had found the crown, sane. She had accepted that she had either experienced her absent dream or it had lasted a long time, her hair couldn't have grown that long otherwise. She wasn't sure if she preferred the notion of a coma or this strange world. If it had been a dream then so too must this be.

Simone found she preferred the idea of this absurd place being real to the idea of still being asleep, she had surely dreamed for long enough. But she couldn't remember any of it, she couldn't help thinking that that voice she heard had something to do with that and the headache definitely did.

She was sure that she needed to remember, but had no idea why.

Fionna reacted… interestingly, to Simone's drastic change of image when the woman came back some time later in her new clothes and new hairstyle. She still had her old dress in a bundle, kindly folded and packed for her by Peppermint Maid.

Her face fell at the same time as she appreciated the new look. Simone's spirits fell with the girl's reaction, she didn't know why it bothered her so, she didn't know the girl. Fionna didn't dislike the outfit, or the hair, but she was moved by the change.

Simone wasn't Ice Queen at all anymore, sure the dress hadn't suited her, but it had been what was left of Ice Queen. Simone saw in the girl's reaction that Fionna had liked Ice Queen, maybe she hadn't been aware of the extent, but she had certainly liked the woman. Now Ice Queen was firmly gone, never to be seen again.

It was with that last thought that the world faded, as if there was some force out there that was determined to prove her wrong. I don't want to be gone, that voice told her. Of course it was Ice Queen, what else could it have been? The world faded behind pain and a blanket of the memories that had been forced from her when she recovered.

Ice Queen had been a sickness, or the result of one at least and she had been cleared out when Simone had been healed. But what had happened, had happened to Simone, there was no denying that. She had been Ice Queen.

She recalled putting the crown back on her head and where the memories had stopped there before, they continued. Simone watched, a passenger, as the past played out, it wasn't a dream, that was certain. She saw herself, locked away in her own home, playing with ice and snow. She was forced to watch as she went out into the world and tried to find someone. This someone had been important and she put all she could into finding them.

But all she got was locked away again. They didn't take her crown though, a comfort object they called it. It didn't matter if she kept it, it may even bring her back. It wouldn't let her tell them that it was the source. It was why she had done what she did, why she heard that voice in her head. She didn't show signs of self harm so they let her keep it.

Why would they do that?

She stayed there for a while, concocting what would be the first of many terrible plans. The only reason they didn't thwart her immediately was because no one believed her, of course she couldn't control ice and snow, there was no such thing as magic.

And then zap, nineteen people frozen and Ice Queen was free, she wasn't really Simone anymore, she hadn't been for almost two months by that time. Ice Queen had been a result of Simone spending too much time with the crown.

She had been free to look again, but then it came. Cake had called it the great mushroom war and hadn't known of its magnitude if she could even speak of it. It had been what people had always assumed would come of the cold war. An arms race that culminated in nuclear holocaust had been one of the many possible, manmade, apocalypses that had been projected.

Simone didn't know where she had been, it had been a place deep underground, with many other people. They had been evacuated here, the people who didn't have homes, who didn't stay still, who didn't bathe. It was not a pleasant place and it shocked her when she found the memory of people dying and her only thoughts being that it was lucky. Lucky they died and were removed from the big room full of smelly people.

But then everyone started dying, hypothermia, pneumonia, starvation, thirst. Everyone in Ice Queen's underground bunker had died, except her. They had died of everything they could die of down there under the earth. Everything but what they should have died of.

She knew that it wasn't the only place people had been taken to, but after a long time she forgot that she wasn't alone in the world. She forgot that people had been hidden all over the world, and she forgot what people should have looked like. She played with the bones, pretending that the skeletons were people until she was sure of it.

She hadn't had anything down there but she hadn't died of it.

"Simone!" the voice was loud and it was hoarse and it didn't fit. She was alone, where did the voice come from. "Simone, wake up!"

Wake up? How could she sleep in that place?

"Ice Queen!"

That jarred her, pushed her free enough. Wake up, the voice had told her. Was she dreaming again?

She opened her eyes to find pink. She was in a silly pink palace with a silly pink man, a cute girl and her pet giant cat. She was lying on the silly pink floor and everyone was looking at her, concerned. What had she done now? She wondered.

"Are you alright I… Simone?" Fionna asked.

"No," Simone told her, wiping the tears from her face. "I am certainly not."

Her head ached much less now, like the pressure had been alleviated. It had, there wasn't so much pressing on her mind anymore. How had she gotten out? How long had it taken? Why had she lived, when so many died?

That was what bothered her, what right had she to live though what so many had not?

"We had better take you home," Fionna said.

Ice Queen didn't think of the castle she had carved from a mountain of Ice, she thought of the airy wooden house where Fionna lived with Cake. Simone shook her head, she wasn't Ice Queen, not any more. She was Simone, and she would stay that way.

"I appreciate that," Simone told the girl.

"Thanks for the clothes Gumball," Fionna said.

"It isn't a problem," Gumball told the girl. "Sorry I couldn't help with the memories."

"I think you did anyway," Simone told him. "I appreciate the clothes, and sorry for freezing you."

"I forgive you," the prince said with a smile. "I'm fine now."

"What did you mean when you said: 'I think you did anyway'?" Fionna asked as they left. "Did you remember something?"

Simone didn't really want to talk about it. "I did," she told the girl. "But I don't want to talk about it." She added the last when it looked like Fionna was about to ask what she had remembered.

Fionna didn't ask, nor did Cake, but Simone wasn't sure that the cat was interested.

Simone told them that she needed to lie down and Fionna again insisted that the woman take her bed. Again? Simone wondered about that, she didn't remember Fionna ever offering her bed before, but obviously it had happened.

Simone lay on Fionna's bed and wondered how she could get more of her memory back. Triggering it hadn't exactly been hard but it had been specific, and there was no claiming that Ice Queen was gone anymore. Ice Queen was quite certainly alive in Simone's head, or at least as alive as she had ever been.

It was hard to reconcile Ice Queen with herself, the persona had been the result of far too much time spent with the crown. She didn't like to think that she was Ice Queen, she didn't want to be responsible for what the crazy witch had done. But it had all been done with her own body and pieces of her own mind. She could distance herself but she couldn't deny responsibility, as much as she wanted to.

It seemed to her that Ice Queen wasn't any more alive that the characters in movies, Ice Queen had been just a persona that had gone on too long. Simone could easily assure herself that Ice Queen wasn't real in the same way that the characters in books weren't real.

I am not fictional, Ice Queen asserted in her head.

That had been what she was going for, if Ice Queen wasn't real it meant that she was at fault.

The bunker slipped back into view like a filter over the tree house she saw and darkened until it was all she could see and hear and smell. She had meant for this to happen, she had meant to come back, but she didn't want to be there.

The memory hopped, a little skip, she was still in the bunker, still void of food and warmth and people. But there was a new sound now, a new thing, a new smell. It was the sound of a wheel turning, gears grinding. It was the sound of a seal being released and fresh air rushing in, throwing up clouds of dust.

Ice Queen had stayed sitting where she was, hand in a skull, talking to herself. It was what she spent most of her time doing down there. The bones had long rotted clean what felt like it must have been many years before, but couldn't have been.

"Hello," a voice called. That jolted the woman, there was a person there, there were people.

She dropped the skull and it cracked on the ground but she didn't care, there were people now, she didn't need the remains anymore. Real people were better than the shadows she had held in her head for a long time. She didn't know how long she had been there, but she knew it had been far too long.

She pulled the door open to reveal a woman, she wore a suit and carried a big amulet that she never wore. There was a young child with her, a boy. They were both glad to see another person and so they spoke for a while, before Ice Queen had to go somewhere else. She didn't want to spend any more time staying still.

The woman had been Ms. Abadeer and the child's name had been Marshall Lee. Ice Queen had been told that the child was actually almost a hundred years old by that time, vampires don't age nearly as fast as humans obviously.

There was a lot of nothing for a while, there weren't clear memories for a long time. She had been in that bunker for a very long time, almost half a decade it turned out. But this was longer, almost three hundred years she did little in the wasteland of the world. She met few other survivors, she met a scientist who claimed to be made of candy and a woman who could set things on fire they way Ice Queen could freeze them. The pair didn't get along.

And then she found it. The perfect place. She had been to the poles before, but the world changed constantly and what she found now was what had come to be her Ice Kingdom. She spent a long time making it into the place it became, leaving the penguins alone as long as they left her alone. But she got lonely out on the ice by herself so she would talk to the penguins. She named them, but had little creativity when it came to names, they were all Gertrude.

There seemed to be a hole for a while, a place where nothing had been remembered and then there were kingdoms like hers everywhere. There was the Candy kingdom, ruled over by the squishy pink scientist, though he had been different then. There was the Nightoshere, Ms Abadeer had been busy. There was even a Fire Kingdom, which she stayed firmly away from.

Then there had been people, candy people, fire people, demons, and the vampire, into his teens, or eight hundreds, by that point. Ice Queen hadn't remembered anything, the gap in her memory had been where her recollection started. She knew she was older than that, but she knew little else, except that she was looking for someone. Her prince.

And then there had been Fionna, the squishy pink man hadn't died, but his experiment ruled now over the Candy Kingdom, Prince Gumball. Marshall Lee was almost an adult and there had been so many new places. People had experimented and caused the end of the world and now new experiments had taken over, Breakfast Kingdom, Blueberry Prince. The things people had made out of the wasteland were numerous and varied and very few were not ridiculous.

But they were there now. Great forests and talking animals.

Simone remembered it and thought it all seemed wrong. The things people should have thought impossible were common and the things that should have been impossible were accepted. It was a strange place, but she hadn't known that at the time.

Then there was Fionna, the tomboy, the last human. Simone remembered the trick she had tried to play on the girl, the day they had spent together and Fionna's visits to the dungeon. She remembered staying a night with them and a fit of coughing that had brought tears to her eyes.

And then she was back to the present, she had woken in a strange place with no recollection of what must have been a dream. It should have been, the scientist in her knew it shouldn't have been real, but she couldn't avoid the fact that it was. And the witch in her was stronger now that she remembered it.

Simone wasn't Ice Queen anymore, there wasn't anything that could be done about that, there wasn't any arguing that. But she wasn't really herself anymore, she wasn't the person she had been before she found the crown. She couldn't be. So she compromised. She was just Simone, but she was herself in the place and the product of what she had done and what had been done to her.

Cake was sleeping when Simone got up and climbed down the ladder, she was glad to be out of the dress, even if he had had it since before the war. It wasn't something she really liked, it had been a product of Ice Queen.

The voice was gone and it was good to have the semblance of calm in her head for the time being. She was still processing the things she remembered, but she remembered them. Maybe tomorrow she would break down again, the weight of her wait in the dark hitting her the way it had when she first remembered it.

But until then there were other things to think about.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** There are only a couple more chapters now. I am taking a break from writing to get some uni work done, but I am working on a sequel.

* * *

Fionna watched from her rather uncomfortable place on the couch as Simone climbed down the ladders and heard as the woman opened the door. She wasn't intending to follow her, she was going to let her walk off alone. Until it occurred to her that she would be letting an unarmed human walk off alone into the forest.

She didn't want to follow Simone, but she did want to be sure that she was safe. She knew the look Simone had had, she sometimes wanted to go for a walk alone at night and think about things. But she was armed and she knew how to fight.

If Gumball was any indication, scientists didn't know how to fight.

Fionna grabbed her bag and followed Simone. The woman hadn't gone far, she hadn't just kept walking, like Fionna did, she was sprawled out where the grass started to slope down, staring up at the stars.

She didn't say anything when Fionna came outside, but the girl still felt like she was intruding, she was sure she had been noticed. She didn't know what to do now, she didn't know what she would have done if Simone had walked on.

"Do you want to watch the stars with me?" Simone asked her, it was a question, not an invitation.

Fionna sat down next to the woman, shrugging off her bag. "Did you remember more?" she asked.

Simone was a long time in answering, she stared up at the stars like she'd never seen them before. When she did answer, it wasn't directly. "Do you know how old I am?" she asked.

Fionna thought about it a minute, she would have said Ice Queen was probably in her forties or fifties and Simone looked like she was younger than that, maybe in her thirties or even late twenties. But the answer to the question had nothing to do with how old the woman looked.

"I don't," Fionna admitted.

"Neither do I," Simone admitted. "Less than a thousand I am sure of, but not by much."

Fionna was astounded, she wouldn't have even guessed that the woman was that old, she felt a bit weird now. Ice Queen had been that old too, hadn't she? Fionna was suddenly embarrassed by the notion that they were so old. She was only fourteen, it was weird.

"I met Marshall Lee when he was kid," Simone told her. "He was older than me then, but he still looked like a child."

That was weird as well, she knew that being a vampire meant that Marshall aged slower than anyone else, but to be near a thousand years old and look barely more than eighteen was pushing it a bit.

"I met his mother too," Simone told her. "She wasn't so bad when she didn't wear that amulet of hers. I didn't ever see her put it on, but I have heard about it."

Fionna recalled her own encounter with Marshall's mother, it had been less than pleasant.

"You don't mind me telling you about these thing, do you?" Simone asked. "Everything just hit me like a landslide and I think that maybe it would be good to try to let it out."

Fionna wondered if she really did want to hear it. "I don't mind," she told the woman. "I like listening to you, and I am curious."

"I bought the crown, did you know that? I didn't find it, I bought it," Simone started at the start. "The seller seemed glad to be rid of it. I was amazed by the price he asked for such a beautiful thing. I'm not surprised anymore. I am surprised that he managed to get rid of it.

"Weird things started to happen then, I put it on for a laugh and scared off my fiancé," Simone didn't sound upset about that, but it had been a long time ago. "I was engaged, it is hard to believe now, no one would want to marry me."

Fionna regretted it almost before she said it. "I would," she said, sure she had meant a joke.

Simone glanced away from the stars for a moment to look at the girl. "I wonder if we would have been friends back then," she said. "If you had been alive when I had been human, before the war, do you think we would have been friends?"

Fionna couldn't have said, she didn't know.

"I imagine it would be less likely," Simone concluded. "If we had been in school together maybe my life would be completely different, maybe I'd be dead, maybe you'd be dead. I sense a bad topic there though. I never really wondered where my fiancé went, you know, he left and I let him. Maybe we were as close as we should have been.

"I wore the crown more and more, not really noticing that I was doing it," the woman continued. "I would take it off when I slept and I would notice that I was cold. After a while I couldn't get warm anymore, couldn't get the blood into my feet or into my fingers. I was so cold and it just wouldn't go away.

"So I went to a hospital," Simone told Fionna. "I lay in their bed and they could think of nothing to do but give me some pills that were supposed to help my circulation if I stayed still long enough. I had a headache, first time the crown gave me one, but they couldn't give me anything for it because it would mess with what I had already taken.

"I spent half the night there before I heard the voice for the first time," Simone looked like she was lost in memory. "I had had it control me before, but I hadn't heard the voice clearly. It told me to come and get it back, I knew it wasn't me, I wasn't crazy, it just didn't feel that way. So I went home to get it."

Simone sat up and glanced at Fionna.

"That is where the first gap is," the woman said after a moment. "I don't think much time passed, but it is like I woke up the way you knew me. I was crazy, that was certain, there was that voice in my head that told me to get my prince back. I didn't really want him, but the crown did for some reason.

"I looked for years," Simone said. "And then the cold war came to the close that many had expected, it hadn't been inevitable, but it had been close. Everyone decided it was time to destroy each other, time to take all life off the map."

Fionna was, of course, horrified. "Why would anyone do that?" she demanded. "How could anyone do that?"

Simone couldn't really answer that question. "How much do you know about the 'mushroom wars'?" she asked the girl.

"Not much, they were a long time ago," Fionna admitted.

"There were two great nations that were fighting," Simone told her. "I wasn't in either of them, but what they did to one another had been expected for a good long time. The fired these bombs at each other, bombs big enough to destroy cities on their own.

"I don't know what happened to everything," Simone admitted. "I was in a bunker underground, with a great many other people."

She stopped and lay back down, looking up at the stars. Fionna shifted and lay down beside the woman. She didn't really know Simone, but she liked her. Simone was like Ice Queen in some ways and unlike her in others. Fionna knew they weren't the same person, but it was hard to be sure that that was the case. Already Simone seemed a bit different to the past day, now that she remembered Ice Queen.

Simone shifted slightly and their shoulders touched. "They all died," Simone choked as she said it. "I didn't know a soul when I went down and Ice Queen didn't much care to either. In that place she couldn't do anything, no magic, nothing. So I grounded myself and I started to get along with people and I made friends and they all died.

"We ran out of food eventually, no one could bear the thought of cannibalism with all the rotting bodies around us," Simone sounded now like she was disconnected, she didn't want to remember this part. "Everyone died but me, I just sat there like there was nothing else in the world but me and I stayed. I lived despite there being no food, no water. There was nothing but bones there and I lived."

She choked again. "What reason was it that I lived?" she demanded of the stars above. "I had no more right than anyone else to live through all that."

She took deep, shaking breaths and Fionna had to resist an urge to put an arm around the woman, mostly because Ice Queen hadn't ever responded very well to touching and partly because the logistics of the situation would have made it awkward.

"I don't know how long I spent in there, but I never did think of leaving," Simone continued eventually. "It was Marshall Lee and his mother that finally opened the door and let me out, I remember the sound the stale air made in leaving and the smell of fresh air after so long. There were air purifiers and such down there, but the air tasted different."

Fionna could understand that, air always tasted different depending on where you were. It seemed strange to the girl when she thought about it. Air was air.

"Not much happened after that," Ice Queen admitted. "I met Gumball's… father, I don't know if father is the right word, but I shy from creator. Gumball is a clone of that person, did you know that? But he is different, he can stay young as long as he wants, or be older. The scientist I met couldn't do that. He had done something to himself so that he could live outside after the bombs dropped, but he couldn't make himself younger."

Fionna wondered if she was supposed to say something when Simone was quiet for a while.

Simone smiled up at the stars. "Where I grew up and where I lived you couldn't see the stars very well," she told the girl. "All the lights made the stars hard to see. I remember the first time I went out into the country to see them better, how beautiful they looked."

Fionna had a hard time picturing Simone as a child.

"Tell me about yourself," the woman instructed. "I told you about me, tell me about you."

Fionna blushed, she didn't like talking about herself.

"You don't have to," Simone said with a little smile. "But I want to know more about you."

"I don't mind," Fionna said. "It's just… I'm not very interesting."

Simone started up, twisting around to look down at the girl, shocked. "You sound like you mean that, but I hope you know it isn't true," Simone told her. "You might be younger than most, but you are just as interesting as anyone I've met, if not more. I never met a girl who lived in a tree house with a magic cat before."

Fionna looked away, she couldn't keep looking at Simone's intense expression, she couldn't help the blush that suffused her cheeks. She felt like she was always blushing around Ice Queen, even around Simone she kept getting flustered.

"I know I've already told you this," Simone said with her little smile. "But you are really cute when you get flustered."

Fionna just blushed deeper.

Simone did an interesting thing at that point. Her expression softened and for a moment it looked like she was going to lean down to Fionna. But then she stopped and her expression became one of studied neutrality.

Simone lay back down and their shoulders weren't touching anymore.

For once Fionna got it. "It would be ok," she told the woman beside her. "I think."

"I just finished telling you how old I am," Simone pointed out. "I know how old you are. But still I just can't seem to help thinking how… I just… it would be weird."

Fionna shifted so that their shoulders were touching again. She had had the same reservation, but it didn't seem important right then. It was true that Simone was close to a thousand years older than she was, and she had lived all those years now. She was almost a thousand years old and Fionna was only fourteen. It was all true, all the case. But it didn't bother Fionna right then, she didn't want it to bother Simone either.

"Does it bother you?" Fionna asked. "My age?"

"My age bothers me," Simone said. "Age bothers me, time bothers me. I feel like it shouldn't bother me, but I think it should. Does that make sense?"

"It's like the part of your brain for thinking and the part for feeling are having a disagreement," it was what was happening to Fionna. "I imagine in your case the part for thinking would be louder. For me the feeling is louder. I don't think it should matter, but I know it does."

"That sounds about right," Simone complained, sighing. "I wish I were so much younger, but I'm not. So I wish that you were older, but you aren't."

Fionna took a nice deep breath and prepared herself, she didn't know if it would go badly, but she had resolved that it was time it went somewhere. Fionna propped herself up on her elbows in what she hoped was a surreptitious manner, but likely wasn't.

Simone didn't move, the woman barely even seemed to be breathing.

Fionna shifted herself so that she was on her side, looking down at Simone much as the older woman had looked down at her earlier. But it was different this time, Fionna didn't have the same expression and she was moving.

Fionna kissed Simone and hoped that she wasn't bad at it. Simone was still a moment, not shocked, just indecisive, but the decision came quickly. She rolled them over so that Fionna was lying on her back on the grass and she moved away a bit so that Fionna couldn't kiss her anymore.

Fionna was frightened that she had done something wrong, maybe she shouldn't have done that. Maybe she should have left it longer, maybe it wasn't meant to be, maybe it was too big a deal to just ignore like that.

Then Simone smiled at her and leaned back down.

* * *

**A/N:** I didn't put this at the top because it would ruin it. When I was writing this it worked but when I edited it, it felt like 'Now Kiss!' but that could just be in my mind. This issue, the age difference, has been in my brain for a while, and I figured it would probably bother them too.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** I was going to upload this yesterday, but... Sorry I didn't upload anything during the week, I've been sick as shit, which (if I were the oversharing sort) would be a pretty apt description. Sorry that this chapter is so short and that there isn't any lesbian sex (I know everyone wants it). Also, I promise to update again this week.

* * *

Simone was just about certain that what she was doing was wrong, but that didn't make her stop. She was just about certain that she was corrupting what was essentially the most pure person currently in existence, but that didn't make her stop.

What made her stop was the pain that chose that time to engulf her, it started like a twinge near her stomach, but progressed quickly and exponentially until she couldn't think. It was like the headaches the crown had given her, but it wasn't in her head.

She fairly collapsed, managing to not fall on Fionna purely by luck, the girl went from almost ecstatic to almost frightened in a matter of seconds. The this was processed in Ice Queen's mind while Simone's was crippled with the pain. It had started, just as Cake and she had suspected. That meant that there was almost no time left now.

Had Simone been privy to Ice Queen's little internal monologue she would have asked what the voice was talking about. Since she couldn't do anything but cower at that point, she didn't have the chance. It gave Ice Queen the chance to attempt to inhabit the body.

It worked to a degree.

"What's wrong, Simone?" Fionna asked, Ice Queen guessed it wasn't the first time. "Can you hear me?"

Ice Queen pulled in a deep breath and did her best to straighten the body out. "Simone can't hear you," she told the girl. "We don't have much time, you need to get the crown back."

Even in her panic Fionna was sceptical. "If that is Ice Queen, why should I get the crown back for you?" she asked.

"Because if you don't we will die," the woman told her. "Simone's body is human now, but it also almost a thousand years old, humans don't live that long."

"But you'll go crazy again if I get you the crown," Fionna protested.

"I'll die if you don't," Ice Queen pointed out.

"And you will essentially die if I do," Fionna countered. "Isn't there another way to do it?"

The body's pain was starting to reach Ice Queen's mind and it was hard for her to think about the question. But there was a way, she was sure she'd come up with a way long ago to get rid of the voice of the crown but not the power. She had known that this would happen but she hadn't remembered when Fionna took the crown.

She took a deep breath and tried to concentrate, but the memory of her solution slipped away, she couldn't focus through the pain, which was increasing steadily.

"I can't think through this pain," she told the girl.

"I'll get the tears," Fionna informed her, sprinting back into the house.

It took a full minute of building pain before the cat leapt from the, already broken, bedroom window and caught Fionna, who did the same. The girl sprinted back over to Ice Queen and, kneeling, helped her drink some of the tears. The pain abated immediately.

Simone came back.

She sat up and looked around, recalling amazing pain but nothing else.

I need to come back out, Ice Queen told her.

I don't know how to let you, she replied. Tell me what you need.

We need the crown back, Ice Queen said, or we will die.

"We need the crown," Simone told the girl. "We will stay here and work out what to do, but we need the crown soon or else we'll die."

"We?" Cake asked.

"Ice Queen and I," Simone explain. "Our personality is still fragmented, but it won't matter if we die."

"Why should we give you the crown back?" Cake demanded. "You'll just be crazy again."

Simone picked up the cat so that they were face to face. "I. Will. Die." She told the cat as firmly as she could manage. "I need the crown to avoid that."

"Right," Cake's voice cracked a little with that. "We'll go and get it for you then."

"We appreciate that," she told the cat.

Fionna and Cake ran as fast as they could, and Simone and Ice Queen watched them go.

What do we do? Simone asked Ice Queen.

I worked it out at some point, Ice Queen replied, we need to go through some of my older memories.

Specific recollection tends to distort memory, Simone pointed out, maybe we should try coming up with a new plan.

Ice Queen sulked.

How about a new magical artefact, Simone suggested.

No guarantee it has the same properties, Ice Queen replied, or that we could find one in time.

They were both quiet, if that was the right word, for a time. They were quite different minds inhabiting one body, they weren't parts of each other so much as eras of the same person. Ice Queen had been the mind at some point and Simone at another. Coming back to Simone hadn't removed Ice Queen so much as sidelined her, for a while.

The pain started to creep back and so they put off thinking to go and find more of the tears. There were a few bottles of the stuff in the cupboard near the bed. Simone took one and Ice Queen drank it, it was important more that Ice Queen be thinking than Simone, Ice Queen had had the idea. Of course, sharing the body, it mattered little which mind controlled.

I had it once before, Ice Queen complained suddenly, why is it so hard to come across again?

I told you, Simone replied, you try too hard and you twist the memory.

If it had been possible while Simone controlled their body, Ice Queen would have sighed. New magical artefact is out, she complained, what else is there?

Simone thought a moment. Can we make a new one? she asked.

Not without magic, Ice Queen replied before it hit her. We can use the crown's magic and the voice won't go with it, Ice Queen was ecstatic.

Do you know how to do that? Simone was slightly more realistic.

I do, Ice Queen replied, that was the plan.

I guess we just have to wait, Simone replied.

They went back upstairs and took all the bottles of tears from the cupboard. They didn't know how long it would take and the pain had come back faster the second time. The third time Ice Queen decreed that they would only drink once the pain was close to unbearable, they may need to conserve the stuff. Simone suggested drinking less than a full bottle at a time.

It worked for a while, they managed to stay conscious for a good two hours before they ran out of tears and the pain immediately overwhelmed them. They didn't a chance by that point, the only options were foetal position or head between the knees and by the time it came to that they couldn't concentrate well enough to think about it.

To say that Fionna and Cake had good timing was to say that Orpheus had good timing, in that he had to rescue his wife from the dead instead of while she still lived. Maybe the comparison was unfair, but by the time Fionna returned with the crown it would have been untrue to say that Simone or Ice Queen still lived.

Fionna made a loud noise, by all accounts, and immediately rushed to put the crown on Simone's head. Cake, for once, did not impede her.

To say that it was a pleasant return to the living would be untrue, but saying they were not better for it was also not the case. Ice Queen and Simone could think again, and then Simone felt pain, it wasn't physical pain this time. With the crown on, Ice Queen had control, and with the crown on, she was quickly regressing.

I control you, the crown asserted.

_YOU DO NOT_, came the response from both the freed mind of Ice Queen and Simone.

I will hold it, Simone told the other mind with which she shared her body.

"I need something," Ice Queen said. "Something made of gold."

Fionna dropped into a pile of treasure, they could see a little fountain come up above the edge of the ladder down. She returned quickly with a plain golden ring. It wasn't a wedding ring, but it was close in its lack of adornment.

Ice Queen didn't have time to fuss.

She held it in her hands and as Simone fought with the voice of the crown she could feel it weakening, the pain started to lessen until it was almost nothing at all. And then the world started to go dark, like the light drained, with the power of the crown, into the ring that the body held. Simone could not fight this, and Ice Queen did not wish to. If this was the end it would have to be the end.

At least they had finally kissed Fionna.

* * *

**A/N: **Tell me if the communication between Ice Queen and Simone isn't clear enough. It is meant to be just like they are thinking at at each other and not really talking or even being telepathic.


	12. Chapter 12

Ice Queen appeared to be dead and Fionna was having some trouble with that, understandably. The ring was still in her hands and it was the only possible hope that they were not dead. The crown had come off of its own accord as the woman had fallen. Fionna was sure it had never done that before.

She gently started to pry open the woman's hands, as soon as there was enough space the ring shot out, but it didn't go far. It hovered not far from the woman's cold hands and started to glow, it started out a dull white and got brighter and brighter, the colour slowly changing from clear white to pale blue and then back again, pulsing with the colour.

And then it stopped, as suddenly as it had started the thing stopped glowing and dropped to the wooden floor with what seemed like a tremendous clash after the silence. The notion of hearing a pin drop had seemed preposterous before, less so now.

Fionna tentatively picked up the object, Cake looked worried but did not try to stop her. It was cold on her fingers, not just the cool of metal but the cold of ice. It burned until she had to drop it and again it rang loudly against the wood.

It seemed to have worked.

Fionna picked up the ring again, gritting her teeth against the cold of the thing, and shifted forward slightly, taking one of Simone's hands and carefully slipping the freezing thing onto her hand. For a long moment nothing happened and Fionna was convinced the woman was dead.

The ring glowed again, brighter now than it had been before, it glowed the light blue colour and brightened until the two girls in the room were forced to cover their eyes against the glow. It lasted what felt like a long time but surely couldn't have been.

And then, as suddenly as before, the thing stopped and the girls could uncover their eyes, before them they found Ice Queen, dressed admittedly the way Simone had been and still with the other woman's shorter hair, but it was Ice Queen. Pale blue skin and pure white hair.

But she still seemed dead, she didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't… anything. Fionna sat there for a long time, waiting for something that had to happen as the sun slowly rose and started to shine through the windows, brightening the house. But it wasn't enough, wasn't bright enough, it didn't light up the space Fionna took up, didn't light up Ice Queen.

The sun did not penetrate the gloom and what else was it good for?

Fionna didn't cry, she was sure still that something would happen if she waited long enough, Cake didn't share the notion but stayed there with her friend. The sun continued to rise and at midday it started to sink and still Fionna stayed where she sat on the floor, watching and waiting for Ice Queen to sit up, to open her eyes, to breathe.

Why hadn't it worked?

Fionna stayed until night fell once more and a chill started to creep into the house. It was futile, she knew it now, there was no life in Ice Queen's body. There was no life in the ring, no life in Simone's mind, there was no life before her. There was nothing that could be done, nothing she could think of.

"What do we do Cake?" she asked, her voice hoarse. "Why didn't it work?"

"I don't know honey," Cake admitted sadly. "We should take her back to the Ice Kingdom, that was her home, wasn't it?"

Fionna sighed a mighty sigh and picked up the woman's body, she wasn't sure that the cat was right, but it was Ice Queen, there was no better place she could think of. "I'll take her," she told the cat. "Can you let me do it alone?"

"Of course," Cake said. "Take as long as you need."

Fionna carried the woman's light body out of the house and walked through the fields around the house, through the forests nearby. She carried Ice Queen across rivers and up mountains, she'd never walked all the way to the Ice Kingdom before, not by herself, but she didn't mind.

The horizon was finally starting to brighten as she entered Ice Queen's massive ice castle. The woman had surely built all this with her magic and despite the use of magic over muscle it was still impressive.

The place reflected the way Fionna had thought of Ice Queen for a long time. She smiled to herself a little at the realisation, stark and beautiful, she'd thought of the castle and its owner. The place shone in the approaching sunlight as Fionna put the thin woman down on her ice bed.

With another great sigh the girl teared up, she hadn't cried yet but seeing the frail woman still on the bed of ice made it seem like hope was gone. And it must have been. In over twenty four hours the woman hadn't come back to life when she wasn't supposed to have died in the first place.

Fionna knelt by the bed and couldn't stopped the tears, it had only been a few days that she had spent with Ice Queen, but she had come to know her, to like her. She had liked Ice Queen a good deal and liked Simone a good deal. Maybe love was the wrong word for something so short lived but it felt like the right word.

She couldn't help but wonder if the woman had felt the same, sure Simone had kissed her, but that didn't mean she felt the same, did it? Why wouldn't it mean that? She wondered on this, but it wasn't a hard question. It was because she was afraid.

Fionna wouldn't have ever thought of loving a woman before, but to say that she had thought about it at all would be a falsehood. Simone had been engaged to a man. Had it just been because Fionna was human?

Fionna had had her doubts before and they had been silenced when Simone kissed her, in the woman's absence she couldn't stop them returning. She had trouble believing that someone but her family would love her.

With a deep breath she did her best to force the doubts away, she didn't want the memory of the previous night erased, didn't want it sullied. She didn't want to forget that Simone had kissed her, that she had meant it, she didn't want it to be buried with doubts.

The tears stopped after what felt like an eternity and the girl just felt drained. It was time to leave, she should leave the woman to her ice palace, or maybe she was leaving the palace to its Queen, that was why she had brought the woman. Ice Queen had been alone for a long time, maybe she should be alone again.

With that depressing thought in her brain she stood and on an impulse laid a soft kiss on the woman's chilled lips. Wasn't that what lovers did? She didn't want this to be the last time she saw the woman but she knew it had to be and she wanted to remember it well. She had given her first kiss to the woman, she may as well give her second.

It couldn't have been more cliché if it tried. The sun burst into the palace and the place gleamed with thousands of reflected rays and in that instant Ice Queen's chest rose. And she started up and gasped in air like a drowning woman coming up for air.

She spotted Fionna and wrapped her cold limbs around the girl, burying her face in the younger woman's shoulder. She was cold, that was what hit Fionna first. She was alive, she was hugging the girl. She was alive.

She was Alive.

Fionna would have jumped with joy had the older woman not been holding her. She felt the chilled lips press against her neck and the shiver she gave was not solely from the cold. Ice Queen was cold, she hadn't ever been quite so cold before, she hadn't emanated with cold.

The woman's lips crept up her throat to her chin and to her cheek and to her lips. Ice Queen kissed her again and again and Fionna got colder and colder, but she didn't mind. The woman was alive, she was alive and seemed well enough.

Ice Queen shifted on her bed so that her legs hung over the side and she pulled the girl closer, enclosing her in a tight embrace. With her face buried again in Fionna's shoulder the thin woman's body started to shake like she was crying, but she didn't shed a single tear.

"Do you know what our last thought was?" Ice Queen asked Fionna. "We thought 'At least we finally kissed Fionna'."

Fionna didn't have anything to say to that. Ice Queen stayed like that for quite a while, face buried in the younger girl's shoulder, until Fionna started shivering. She held it for as long as she could, but finally she couldn't help but start shivering, like a fool she hadn't brought a jumper or even pants even though she was going to the ice kingdom.

To be fair there had been much more pressing issues at hand.

Ice Queen let the girl go and Fionna stepped back, rubbing her arms. Ice Queen gave her a watery grin and looked at her own hands. Blue again, she tried to grab some hair to look at, but she couldn't convince the short hair to come into her view.

"I guess I'm cold again," the woman commented.

"You weren't ever that cold before though, were you?" Fionna asked.

"Hmm," was the response.

Ice Queen tapped the ring cautiously and pointed away from Fionna, the bolt that came from her hand was much brighter than usual and created a large chunk of ice against the wall. Ice Queen stood up and examined it.

"I think this thing is stronger somehow," the witch said with a smile. "I wonder if we killed the crown."

She was back to referring to herself as a single person, which was something of a relief to the girl, even if the both who had been in there had liked her and been largely the same person. It was still a strange notion.

Ice Queen looked around the place. "I don't much want to stay here," she confided in the girl. "Shall we return to the tree house?"

"That sounds good," Fionna replied, still cold. "Cake will totally freak out."

Cake didn't freak out, but then again they neglected to tell her about the kissing, they didn't really want her to know, understandably. Fionna did mention that it had been the prettiest thing she had ever seen, with the sun bouncing every which way.

"There was even a beautiful woman on the ice," the girl said with a grin at said woman.

Ice Queen grinned back. "And it was a beautiful girl who saved me from the ice."

Cake blanched at them and grinned.

* * *

**A/N: **Alright, I know people have been looking forward to it, but it seems like the sequel won't be coming for a long time, if ever. Sorry about that, but it just isn't working. And to any new readers, I hope you enjoyed it, and tell me what's wrong.


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